The American Missionary

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The American Missionary.

American Missionary Association.

1887.

The American Missionary wishes all its readers and friends a “Happy New Year.” The memory of the old year makes this salutation a hearty one. God has blessed our work in a signal manner both at the North and at the South. Our appeals have been heard and have met with generous responses. The religious press has rendered us most valuable aid. Friends have interested friends in our behalf. The debt has been almost wiped out. The year of 1886 stands conspicuous in its attestation of the favor God has given the Association in the eyes of the churches. Our greeting, therefore, is not merely formal. We have occasion to be grateful. Will our friends then please be assured of our gratitude, as entering upon the work of 1887 we wish for them, one and all, a “Happy New Year.”

This is the time to make resolutions. Good resolutions now formed and faithfully carried out will be certain to make the new year a happy one. We would suggest that the resolutions passed at the National Council at Chicago and adopted as its own by our annual meeting at New Haven, asking for $350,000 from the churches this year for our work, be approved by every reader of The Missionary, with this one added, “Resolved, that I will do my part as an individual to make these resolutions effectual.” If this resolution is heartily adopted and lived up to, then certain results will follow: (1) The sixty per cent. increase upon the contributions of last year, that the amount called for necessitates, will be secured. (2) A larger number of churches will be found among those contributing to the A. M. A. than has ever yet been recorded. (3) Special appeals will not be heard. (4) Demanded enlargement of work at a number of points will be made, and new fields entered. (5) Our missionaries will be made happy in the knowledge that their work is to be sustained.

We feel that we can ask God’s blessing upon all who thus resolve with an assurance of faith that the blessing will be bestowed where the resolution is kept.

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One of the crying evils of the times is the severe tax put upon the eyes by reading small print. The American Missionary has been an offender in this respect, but it has seen the error of its ways and promises to try to do better. It has selected the first month of the new year in which to inaugurate the reform. Small print has been banished from its pages of reading matter. We trust that this effort of The Missionary to make its pages more readable will be responded to by a great increase in the number of its readers. The annual subscription is only fifty cents.

Notes in the Saddle, by Field-Superintendent Ryder, is a heading under which will be found, on another page, some good reading. We hope to continue these notes during the year. We caution our readers against falling into the phonetic craze when they read this announcement. We are not responsible for the way in which our Superintendent spells his name, but we presume he follows the analogy of “ancient tyme.” At any rate, he who in the saddle, with reins over the neck and speed unchecked, can make notes, must be an expert rider, no matter how we spell or pronounce his name.

We ask the special attention of our lady readers to the present number of The Missionary. They will find Miss Emerson’s report and the papers presented by Miss Robertson and Miss Ilsley at the New Haven meeting, which we print elsewhere, to be most interesting reading. We are very sorry that space does not permit us to also print the most excellent address of Mrs. St. Clair. Any lady who has the January Missionary in her possession and allows the next Woman’s Missionary Meeting to be a dull one, ought to be disciplined for not living up to her privileges. Just read this number through and see if you don’t think so too.

Immediately following the annual meeting, under the charge of Secretary Shelton, Rev. A. L. Riggs, with Pastor Ehnamani and the Santee School Indian students, started through New England upon a speaking and singing campaign in behalf of our Indian Missions. At the same time, Secretary Roy, accompanied by Rev. Geo. V. Clark, of Athens, Ga., an ex-slave and a child of the A. M. A., started in upon a similar campaign through Ohio. For six weeks, meetings were held almost every night in the week, with occasional meetings in the afternoon. On Sundays three meetings were usually held. Large audiences, sometimes crowded, even on week nights, have greeted and with interest listened to them. At Cleveland both forces joined, devoting a Sabbath to the Congregational churches in that city. The Monday evening following, a final meeting of the Ohio campaign was held in Oberlin, where the magnificent audience and spirit of the meeting[3] were a worthy close to the series and in perfect keeping with the historic record of Oberlin on the subject of missions. Here the bands separated to meet at the end of one week in Oak Park, where Secretary Roy with his family resides, and where Secretary Shelton formerly resided. The Congregational church of Oak Park was crowded to its utmost capacity with those who came to attend the final meetings of the two campaigns and to listen to the singing and the speaking of both forces. A beautiful incident in this meeting was the solo singing of a slave song by Mr. Clark, the chorus to which was taken up by the Indian students; and another incident in the same direction was the rendering of a slave song, in the chorus to which both the audience and the students responded.

To repair the damage done our mission home and school buildings by the earthquake at Charleston a careful estimate calls for not less than $2,500. One of our teachers, Mr. E. A. Lawrence, has been meeting the emergency by holding school in a barn. The time has come when the necessary repairs must be made, both upon the home and school. Hundreds of scholars are waiting and parents are begging that Avery Institute be again opened. In response to our former appeals for Charleston some special donations have been received, but they are entirely inadequate to meet the emergency. We beg leave to remind our friends that the money needed to make these repairs must be furnished either by special contributions or else taken out of money already appropriated to other work. We trust they will not leave us to be compelled to do the latter. It may also be added that to delay these repairs much longer will result in the ruin of the buildings.

REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS.

The Second Annual Report of Commissioner Atkins is a candid and comprehensive document, dealing briefly but frankly with the several problems growing out of the relations of the Government to the Indians. We have not space for a review of the Report, but we wish to call special attention to the facts which it incidentally presents as to the neglect of Congress, and especially of the House of Representatives, to act upon a number of important bills touching Indian affairs. No less than eight such bills are mentioned—six of them passed the Senate, but failed to receive final action in the House—and some of these are by far the most essential to the welfare of the Indians. Three of these bills we wish particularly to name: The Dawes’ Bill for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty; the Sioux Bill for the Division of the great Sioux Reservation into six reservations; and the Bill for the Relief of the Mission Indians in California. The first of these is fundamental to the settlement of the Indians[4] in separate homes, and consequently to their becoming American citizens; the second has the same end in view; and the third is a simple act of justice, long and shamefully deferred, to the suffering and deserving Indians, whose sad case has been so pathetically depicted by Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson in her touching story of Romona.

We ask attention to these bills for a practical purpose. Congress should be urged to act upon them at once. The present session is the short one, ending March 4th. If this session closes without passing these bills, the whole subject will be deferred almost indefinitely. The next Congress will be a new one; the Members to some extent will be new; the committees maybe wholly so, and they may need years of petitioning, educating and inspiring to move them to proper action on these essential topics. No time can be lost. No influence is so great upon the average Congressman as letters directly from his constituents. We therefore urge every reader of these pages to write at once to the Member of Congress from his district, or to others whom he may know, asking for prompt and energetic efforts for the passage of these bills.

On another page of The Missionary will be found the admirable address of President Seelye, presenting the paramount importance of religious effort on the part of the churches in behalf of the Indians. We are in full accord with this view. But the Government has also its responsibilities, and all that it does in the lines we have suggested will only facilitate the work of preparing the Indians for what we wish them all ultimately to be, intelligent, self-supporting Christian citizens.

WHAT SOME WOMEN ARE DOING.

REV. A. H. BRADFORD, D.D.

This is woman’s era. Her influence and presence are in all spheres. Within a quarter of a century there were few in stores, and none in public offices. To-day they are clerks, operators in the factories, teachers in schools; they are in telegraph, and telephone, and post-offices; they are artists and traders; a few are captains of steamboats; a few are lawyers; now and then one ventures to preach; and even the mysteries of Wall Street are not terrifying to them, for they have commenced competition with the brokers. Women have already won recognition in the practice of medicine, and are among the most successful practitioners in all great cities. They are among the most popular lecturers. At least one of the most successful publishing houses in New York is owned and managed by a woman. In business and on the platform she has ceased to be a curiosity.

The power of woman in politics is not appreciated, but it is one of the most vital forces of this century. No Anarchist in Paris could influence the Faubourgs quicker than Louise Michel. In the history of Nihilism in Russia no names have been regarded with more devotion by those struggling[5] for wider liberty, and none more dreaded by the existing order, than Sophie Perovskaia, Jessy Helfman and Vera Zassulic. Charles Dickens never exhibited a truer insight into human nature than when he made a woman the impersonation of remorseless vengeance.

But notwithstanding all that women are doing in trades, industries, politics, it still remains that in works of reform, charity and missions, she is especially distinguishing herself.

Two of the largest and most efficient charitable institutions in the world, viz: “The Deaconesses’ Institution of Rhenish Westphalia, at Kaiserwent,” and “The Mildmay Conference Hall and Deaconesses’ Home, in London,” are almost exclusively in the hands of women. The influence of these two noble charities reaches around the world, not only in works of beneficence, but also in active evangelistic ministry.

The first person to call attention to the horrible condition of English prisons was Elizabeth Fry. The horrors of war were immeasurably mitigated by Florence Nightingale. She gave an impetus to the work of training nurses, which has grown into enthusiasm in all civilized lands. Agnes Jones changed the work-house hospitals of Great Britain, from places of torture into places of blessing. Sister Dora glorified the “Black Country” by her heroism and self-sacrifice. The first person to make practical a good plan for improved tenement houses was Octavia Hill. Her efforts reach the people which such houses as those built by the Peabody estate only displace.

In this country the most conspicuous effort to improve the low-class of tenement houses has also been made by a woman. The success Miss Collins has won in Gotham Court is one of the most noticeable in the history of such efforts. The Bureau of Charities in New York is very largely managed by Mrs. Lowell and her devoted co-workers. The President of the American Branch of the Red Cross Society, that non-sectarian, but most Christian Association, which extends its arms of blessing wherever human suffering is found, is that American Florence Nightingale, whose heroism and sacrifice on Southern battle-fields can never be too highly appreciated—Clara Barton. And these are only hints, here and there, of woman’s work in charity.

If now we turn to her service in Reform we are met, at once, by the fact that not even the fiery eloquence of Phillips, nor the unconquerable agitations of Garrison did so much to hasten the abolition of slavery as the persuasion and persuasive eloquence of Mrs. Stowe, in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. People were beguiled into reading that, who would not have listened to a word from the equally sincere, but more rampant agitators.

After the abolition of slavery there remained that other relic of barbarism, entrenched in a far more impregnable position, the rum-power. Intemperance has had to meet many who have attacked it in past days, but never yet an organization so tireless in effort, so fertile in expedients,[6] and so exhaustless in resources as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. That association has made many mistakes, and is in danger of making many more, but one of the elements of its power is its willingness to learn. If it cannot fight with one weapon it adopts another. The brewers and distillers have millions of money at their command, but millions of money are not so formidable as millions of motherly hearts.

If now we turn to that other evil, more subtly and surely ruinous even than intemperance, impurity and the social evil, we find a new organization rising with great promise of power, viz.: The White Cross Society. The aim of that Association is to promote purity. It reaches out its hands to young men and women alike, and that work, in its organized form, owes its existence to the fertile brain and motherly heart of Josephine Butler, the wife of a canon of an English cathedral.

If woman works for the salvation of the physical life of her brothers and sisters, of course she must be equally anxious for the salvation of their souls. Woman has an instinct for religion. Living a life of greater seclusion than man, her heart in the silence, like a flower in the darkness, has grown toward the light. And this spiritual faculty has found the natural field for its operations in missionary work. The first American missionary martyr was Harriet Newell. Grand as was the life, and courageous as was the heart of Adoniram Judson, in all that called for heroism and consecration he was surpassed by his first wife, the beautiful, the almost preternaturally heroic Ann Hasseltine.

Women preponderate in all the departments of missionary activity. They are in distant lands as teachers, Bible-readers, nurses, physicians, missionaries’ wives. They go enthusiastically to homes in dug-out houses, and teach school and rear and train children, and keep the house, and do the drudgery, and then go to heaven, without complaining of earthly obscurity. They are among the Indians on their reservations, and in the Chinese quarters of the Pacific cities. But it has sometimes seemed to me that the most difficult and unattractive work for Christ that woman has ever undertaken, has been among the millions of blacks in the South. The work itself in many instances, if not all, has been disagreeable, if not repulsive. It has been at home, and has not inspired the enthusiastic admiration which has been given to those who have been in the foreign field. It has been attended with misconception, social ostracism, and sometimes with personal danger not found in any other branch of missionary service. But in all parts of the South are women at work with no motive but the love of Christ and humanity, winning souls by their Christ-like examples, and refining the uncultivated and vicious by the sweetness and purity of their unconsciously beautiful lives.

Woman’s work for woman among the blacks of the United States is the most important of all work for that people. Pure women have lessons to teach their own sex who have been degraded by a century of bondage,[7] or who are the inheritors of the legacies of slavery, that none others can teach, and which must be well learned before there can be much progress in the moral amelioration of the race.

Her enthusiasm, her swift hostility to the more degrading sins, her sympathy which bears all the sorrows of those around her, her intuition of the Divine Fatherhood, and her patience, qualify woman for kinds of work which most men can never do so well. But there is one thing that men can do—they can remember the Apostle’s injunction, “Help those women.”

THE INDIAN PROBLEM.

ADDRESS OF PRES. JULIUS H. SEELYE, D.D., AT NEW HAVEN.

The whole number of Indians in the United States, including Alaska, probably is not far from 300,000, of whom about one-half now wear citizen’s dress, and about one-fourth speak the English language sufficiently to be understood. Some of these people are citizens, and some are wards of the nation. They differ from each other as they differ from us, in their languages and thoughts and ways. They represent nearly every grade of civilized and savage life. Their original rights to a large portion of our national domain we have recognized by purchase and by treaties, which have plighted the faith of the nation for their protection and support. We certainly desire to live in peace with them, but with many of them we are in constant danger of war. What shall we do with them and for them? How shall we wisely maintain our rights respecting them, and at the same time righteously fulfill our obligations? How shall the Indian cease to disturb us, and become a blessing to the nation?

There is really but one solution to the Indian problem, though many have been prominently attempted. We have tried to force the Indian. We have fought him. We have shut him in upon reservations. We have made a pretence of feeding and clothing him. We have tried our hand at civilization, have built school-houses, provided teachers, and gathered Indian children together, and taught them the rudiments of learning. We have furnished them with implements and helps to agriculture, and some of the mechanic arts. But the results, it must be admitted, are not re-assuring. When we fight Indians, they fight too, and their fighting is apt to be, in proportion to their numbers, much more successful than ours. In the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1868, there is an estimate of the expenditure of some late Indian wars, from which we learn that it has cost the United States Government on an average one million of dollars, and the lives of twenty-five white men to kill an Indian. “There is no good Indian but a dead Indian,” said Gen. Sheridan, Lieutenant-general of our army, but the process of making the Indians good in this way is at least a costly one, and the prospect of success can hardly be considered hopeful.

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It may be doubted whether any Governmental efforts yet made to subdue or civilize these people have essentially improved either the Indians themselves or their relations to us. Indian wars have not made the Indians peaceable; Indian schools have not civilized them; Indian rations and reservations have not satisfied the requirements of even their bodily comfort and sustenance; and the proposal now made and loudly advocated, of breaking up all their tribal privileges and allotting the property of the tribe to the members of the tribe in severalty, while encompassed by grave difficulties from the ignorance of the Indian and his need of guardianship, would endanger that sense of common rights and privileges, that communal relationship, on which not only the very existence of human society depends, but in which is the germ of whatever is distinctively human. We are not educated up to our individual rights in spite of our communal relations, but because of these.

I am not speaking here of what Governmental efforts should have been, or should now be, but I speak of the actual facts of the past and the present, and I say that the Governmental procedure thus far, instead of solving the Indian problem, has only increased prodigiously the difficulty of its solution. Incidents illustrative of this might be cited by the hour, but would be impertinent in an audience as intelligent as that here assembled.

And yet the solution of the Indian problem is not a matter of theory or of speculation, but is an accomplished fact. It has been wrought out before our eyes. Wild, savage Indian tribes, as fierce, as lawless, as intractable as any now existing, have been tamed, have been taught the arts and ways of peace, have subjected themselves to law, and are now living in orderly, peaceable, industrious communities. The Cherokees, and the Delawares and Shawnees now united with them, the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, the Creeks, and the Seminoles—who are known as the five civilized tribes—now have their constitutions and laws, their supreme court and their district courts, their well-arranged public school system, and “indeed every provision of law and organization requisite in a State founded on the consent of the governed, controlled by officers chosen by the people, and suited to an advancing civilization,” (U.S. Senate Rep., I.: XVII.). Pauperism among them is unknown, and, by the best reports, crime is less frequent in proportion to numbers than among the adjoining whites. The Report of the United States Senate Committee on Indian Affairs made to the Senate July 4, 1886, says of the Cherokee nation, that “it is difficult, after a searching criticism, to point out any serious defects in their constitution or statutes. In some respects several of our State constitutions could be amended with advantage by adopting some of the provisions of the Cherokee constitution. Their situation, and that of each of the five tribes, was full of difficulties, but they have met them skillfully.” (I.: XVII.)

“Fifty years ago,” in the language of this same report,[9] “these five nations—now blessed with a Christian civilization, in which many thousands are active and intelligent workers, while the common sentiment of the whole people reverently supports their efforts, and approves their influence—were pagans.”

Fifty years ago the Sioux, now gathered at Santee and Sissiton, in Christian communities and homes and schools, with churches enrolled on the same records as those of New York and Philadelphia, in connection with Presbytery and Synod and General Assembly, were savage hordes, roaming through the Northwest as wild as the wildest. These savages have been changed. The facts are before our eyes. How was the transformation wrought? The answer is clear. No one can, no one does, mistake it. The United States Senate Report, from which I have quoted, acknowledges these to be the results of Christian missions. Where the Government has totally failed, the voluntary efforts of the churches have been crowned with this success. The preaching of the Gospel has done this work, and it alone. This ought not to surprise us. It will not surprise any historical student. The same agency by which our ancestors have gained their law and liberty and civilization—who a few centuries ago were savages and cannibals, offering human sacrifices, hanging the skulls of their slain enemies in their houses and using them as drinking-cups in their feasts—the same agency by which in our time the cannibals of the Fijis, and the cruel tribes of Madagascar, have found themselves possessed of a peaceable and progressive civilization, has broken the darkness and rolled away the shadows from these Indian tribes, as quietly, as peacefully and as gloriously as the coming of the sun has brought in the morning. Only the changes which in our ancestors required centuries for their accomplishment, have been wrought among these Indians in as many decades.

Here is the solution of the Indian problem—the only solution—and here is the work to which we are to gird ourselves afresh. Our first great work, the work which holds in itself all other agencies for Indian civilization, as the oak is held in the acorn, is the preaching of the Gospel to these people, the patient, earnest, loving presentation to them of the glad tidings that “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Instruction in letters, instruction even in virtue is idle without this, and with this all other instruction follows as flowers open at the sunshine. The great trouble with us, brethren, is we are too unbelieving in the efficacy of the Gospel. We seek to supplement it; we think it needs other things; we forget that the Gospel is, and that it alone is, the power of God unto salvation, and we forget, too, what a broad term salvation is, that it covers the godliness which hath the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come. The Gospel of Christ is the power of God unto the salvation of the body, the salvation of the intellect, the salvation of manners and customs, the salvation of society, and it is this power to every[10] one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. What wonders it has wrought! What wonders it is working now! How would every difficulty in our social state, our vice and crime and poverty, our selfishness and sensuality and woe, all disappear if the Gospel only dwelt among us, a living principle in every heart! We need no other evidence of its divine all-sufficiency than the adaptation it has already shown to every human need, and we need no other motive to its proclamation than the privilege of being co-worker with Him, “Who shall deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper. He shall spare the poor and the needy, and shall save the soul of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall their blood be in his sight.”

ADDRESS OF REV. DR. C. I. SMITH

AT THE NATIONAL COUNCIL.

[The National Council at Concord decided to send fraternal delegates to the African M. E. Zion General Conference, and the African M. E. General Conference; and so Dr. Wm. H. Ward and Rev. Joseph E. Smith, of Chattanooga, were appointed to visit the former, and Revs. J. E. Roy and Wm. A. Sinclair, of Nashville, the latter. The first pair of delegates presented the salutations of the Congregational churches to the Zion Conference meeting in this city in May, 1884; and the second pair did their duty in the other Conference, which met the same month in Baltimore. Whereupon the last-named body appointed Rev. Dr. C. I. Smith, Secretary of its Sunday-school work, to respond at the Chicago National Council. He appeared, and the following is the substance of his eloquent address:]

We are all proud of the work which your Church, through the American Missionary Association, is doing in the South. It is impossible to measure the good results growing out of the efforts of the A. M. A. for the Christian education of colored youth. Through its instrumentalities, thousands of our youth have been measurably prepared for the successful discharge of the substantial and higher duties of life, and it must be gratifying to you to learn that most of those are doing life’s work well. The leading philanthropists of the South regard the colored youth now being educated in your institutions in that section as destined to exert a powerful influence for the conservation of healthy social and moral forces.

Many of the graduates of your Southern institutions are the recognized leaders in their respective communities for the advocacy and advancement of every question of social and moral reform. Their fidelity to the principles of temperance is remarkable. In the memorable contest at Atlanta, Ga., none did more valiant work for prohibition than the students of your institution in that city. They are exerting an influence upon the thought and conscience of the South that must eventually show itself in favor of[11] maintaining the better life among all classes. I might say that you do not know the amount of good you are doing in the South; for, if you did, I verily believe that you would try to do more.

We do not look upon the Congregational Church in the South as an unfriendly rival, but as a stalwart ally in emphasizing the great principle of the brotherhood of man. Thus far you have refused to compromise with the spirit of evil by establishing churches and schools on the basis of what is known as the “color-line.” In this refusal you have answered to the highest needs of the hour. Unfortunately this cannot be said of all the Christian societies that are at work in the South. Color-line churches and schools, under the patronage of Christian organizations, have been established among us. This we greatly deplore, especially when such proceedings are begun and carried on by Northern societies. Christian churches and schools, like the gates of heaven, should be open to all, and we bitterly regret that anything further should be done to outrage the enlightened Christian conscience that this century has developed. It is mere mockery to cut off the branches from a tree of evil and leave its roots and trunk untouched. Lay the axe to the root of the tree, and the work of reformation, though necessarily slow, will prove substantial and enduring. Berea College, in Kentucky, has successfully demonstrated that the co-education of the two races is both possible and practicable, and what it has done all other institutions of learning in the South can and should do.

In Nashville, Tenn., we have two great institutions of learning, Vanderbilt and Fisk Universities; each gazing upon the other, yet widely differing as to their influence and aim, and the age which they represent. Vanderbilt represents the age that was and is; Fisk the age that is to be—the age when every worthy man shall be to every worthy fellowman a brother. Fisk University is your child, and one of which you can justly be proud, and may you fully nourish and protect it. It is a great light in a dark land—an oasis of living thought in a vast desert of parched and stupid ideas. May its light never diminish nor its fountains cease to flow.

Through the work of the A. M. A. you have firmly imbedded yourselves in the deepest affections and highest gratitude of the colored people of the South. No words can express our gratitude for the firm stand which you have taken in favor of the New Testament idea of human equality. You have made for yourselves a glorious name, and your work will endure so long as the thought of God sways the minds of men.

WELL SAID.

FROM ADDRESS OF REV. A. G. HAYGOOD, D.D.

But back of the courts there must be educational work. There must be among the people a better sense of essential righteousness. There must be a justice that will not and cannot sentence a poor wretch, who steals a[12] coat or a piece of bacon for a longer term than the rich man who breaks a bank and robs a thousand people; that will not and cannot send a poor man without friends or money to prison for a longer term than a rich man with both money and friends who has committed the same offense; that will not and cannot send a Negro or a Chinaman to prison for a longer term than it will send a white man for the same offense. Among the people there needs to be developed a better conscience as to the sanctity of an oath, and the sacred majesty and divine authority of law that knows no conditions of society and no distinctions of race. With such a conscience paramount, even among the leaders of opinion, prison reform will be easy.

THE SOUTH.

NOTES IN THE SADDLE.

BY FIELD-SUPERINTENDENT C. J. RYDER.

There is no department of work in the great field which is being developed by the A. M. A. more thrillingly interesting than that of the mountains of Kentucky and Tennessee. A recent trip, one of several already made through that region, has greatly increased my appreciation of this work, and confidence in the grand success which is even now opening before us. I have just been over the ground covered by our missionary work and have been impressed with the vast opportunities, as well as the imperative needs which exist on every hand in this mountain region. Let us go over that field together. New and strange phases of life meet us at every turn.

We enter the mountain regions of Kentucky in which the A. M. A. has schools and churches, a few miles north of Knoxville. Indeed the first station of the Kentucky missions is in Tennessee. This part of the work is under the direction of Rev. A. A. Myers. This region has only recently been opened to the outside world. Coal fields are abundant, and timber of the very best kinds still stands in vast forests on the hillsides and along the streams. These trees shoulder against each other like an army of giants marshalled to defend the wild freedom of their mountain home against the impertinent intrusion of the “humans,” as the mountaineers call men. These brave defenders, however, are fast falling beneath the axe of the lumberman. In the yard of a single mill, seven million five hundred thousand feet of walnut timber was piled ready for the market. This same mill cuts on an average ten million feet of lumber, of all kinds, in a week.

A rough, but interesting mountaineer, who sat near me in the freight caboose, in which I rode from Knoxville northward into the mountain region, told me that he kept eight yoke of cattle at work all the time in bringing lumber from the “benches” on the sides of the mountains to the[13] “slides.” These benches are small plains, or miniature plateaus upon which the larger forests grow, as the soil is deeper and richer, being formed from the wash of the mountains above. They draw the logs to the edges of these benches and let them over the slides, down which they dart, as the arrow flies from the string of a bow. It is in this country, so rich in mineral and timbered wealth, that a large part of the mountain work of the A. M. A. lies.

The vast army of men crowding into this region to gather its wonderful wealth, makes still more imperative the necessity for Christian work here immediately. A new railroad is pushing its way from Corbin through Barboursville, and pointing toward Cumberland Gap, through which it will probably pass out into Virginia. The whistle of the locomotive is the reveille awakening other thousands to the possibilities of this region, and bringing them together here. You see, therefore, that this field claims our attention and our help, just as every new region of the West does, as it is rapidly filling up through emigration from other parts of our own country and from other lands. There are also the communities of mountaineers, for whom these churches and schools were planted, who have a claim upon us. Within a few years, hundreds of coal mines will pour out their black streams along the railroads, many of which are as yet unbuilt. Furnace fires will light up the darkness of the night along the hillsides. These small towns will be great centers of commercial and industrial importance.

Such is the country, and such are the circumstances, surrounding the work here. “What has actually been done?” you ask, and it is a very natural question. Nine churches have been organized, and are doing faithful work for the Master in this region. Four schools have been wholly or partially supported by the A. M. A. for some time, and their influence is felt far and wide. In the Williamsburgh Academy, between one and two hundred bright, earnest young people gathered in the chapel for the opening exercises of the school. These scholars range in their studies from first primary to higher normal. Many teachers from other schools come here to complete their otherwise imperfect preparation for their work. The work of the academy is not that of intellectual training, with a little religion tacked on to make it palatable with Christian people; it is Christian training which the pupils receive here.

I rode with Brother Myers forty-four miles on horseback, much of the way through a driving rain-storm, to visit some stations which we could not conveniently reach by rail. At Corbin, which is to be the junction of the new railroad with the present railroad, we have a beautiful site for a church building—some lumber already on the ground—and we ought to push the building to completion at once. People came out from their cabins along the roadside as we rode past, and eagerly asked: “When are you coming to take up a meeting with us again?” Children[14] especially crowded around our horses when we stopped, to inquire about the Sunday-school, to get a pleasant word from Bro. Myers, which he never failed to give, and to receive some little paper, or brightly colored card with a Scripture gem upon it. His pockets seemed to be always full of these children’s traps.

There are four church buildings ready to be dedicated, and two pastors, native mountaineers, one a graduate of Berea College, awaiting ordination. And so the work moves on in a wonderful way, for it is God’s way.

This is only one part of the work which the A. M. A. is pressing forward in these mountain regions. I had hoped to have space to speak of the work in Scott and Morgan and Cumberland Counties, Tenn., but cannot now. The large academy building at Mount Pleasant, Tenn., of which our readers of The American Missionary have heard an occasional word, is already completed, and will be ready for dedication in a few weeks. It is a grand building, a cause of wonderment to the simple mountain people, who ride for tens of miles to see it. I shall speak of it more at length hereafter. This school and church work is like the rising of the sun of a brighter and better day over this Cumberland plateau.

A CONTRAST.

BY A TEACHER.

It was twelve o’clock of a hot May day in the noisy Southern city. Out upon the scorching sidewalk it seemed almost impossible to escape the remorseless heat of the sun, and so I turned gladly down the narrow alleyway and climbed the rickety stairs of an old building at its end. In a little low room at the top, through whose small windows very few breezes could find their way, were the old man and woman for whom I was seeking. The room itself was so gloomy that I tried to forget both heat and weariness, and put all of cheerfulness possible into my voice as I bade them “good morning” and inquired after their health. It seemed a relief to the poor old woman to tell me of her own pain and her husband’s failing mind, and so I let her talk on, suggesting occasionally little things which might make them more comfortable, and promising aid where that was best. Gradually we came to talk of other things, and then I spoke of God and asked her if they loved him. She shook her head sadly and answered, “No, we are two poor old sinners together,” while the old man, hearing that name which to so many brings joy and peace, muttered over and over, “No hope, no hope; I’ve sinned away my day of grace.”

For a moment my heart failed me, but, after a quick prayer for help, I tried to tell them the “old, old story” so simply that the truth could reach their darkened minds. Over and over I repeated Christ’s own words, “Him that cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out,” and then we knelt and asked the dear Father who loves all to help them. Saying[15] “good bye” to them and promising soon to come again, I descended the stair and knocked at the door of the son’s room, which stood wide open. I was invited into the not very tidy room by a pretty-looking woman with her head tightly bandaged with a handkerchief. On inquiring her trouble she told me she was suffering from nervous headache, and, as I know something of that, I was able to suggest remedies which she said were effective. On the bed in the corner, stretched out at full length, lay her husband. The faithful wife said he was sick, but to me he looked lazy. We talked together of many things, and I found that neither this husband or wife were Christians, though she seemed very anxious to know the way. I read to them from that blessed word, the word of which God Himself said, “It shall not return unto me void, but shall accomplish that whereunto it is sent,” and with a little word of prayer left them, glad in my faith in God’s transforming power.

It was two o’clock when I reached home, and I had only time for a lunch and a short resting spell before starting to make another call, which proved to be full of pleasantness and encouragement. My friend and I were piloted on this trip by a dark-eyed, but fair-skinned girl, who was a pupil of our school. We rode as far as the street car would carry us, and then walked through country paths and fields until we reached her home. It was a luxury to rest in the easy rocking-chair in the pleasant little parlor, while fresh country breezes rustled the simple white curtains at the windows. And when, in addition to the pleasant words of greeting, clear water was brought us from the well, and large, sweet berries from the garden, we felt that our welcome was complete. After visiting for a little time, we were asked by the children if we didn’t want to see the farm, and following them out found that the farm, though not large, was carefully cultivated, and that the peas, beans, potatoes, cabbages and other vegetables which grew there, found a ready market in the great city. I have heard and seen much of the thriftlessness of the South, but here at least was thrift and prosperity. Coming back to the house we were introduced to the father, a dark-browed but fine-looking man, who by honest toil is trying to support his family, and give to his children the opportunities which shall make of them good men and women. These children are sent to the Sunday-school and day-school regularly. Can we doubt that from these they shall gain that which shall make them a blessing to their race and to the world?

Against the dark background of thriftlessness and ignorance and poverty which we find among the colored people, such homes as these stand out in bright relief, and they should be a source of encouragement to all who are trying to do God’s work in the world. And so, dear friends, I have told you of these homes, that seeing the difference and what may be accomplished in all these homes by Christian education, you may not grow weary, but may look forward to that harvest-time when the seed which your[16] prayers and gifts have sown shall spring up and bear fruit even an hundredfold.

BUREAU OF WOMAN’S WORK.

ANNUAL REPORT.

BY MISS D. E. EMERSON, SECRETARY.

It is apparent to any who study the character of the field of the American Missionary Association, that not only is there ample opportunity for women to work, but that it becomes a necessity to the successful accomplishment of the good designed. As well might we say to the impoverished, “Be ye warmed and filled,” giving none of those things needful to the body, as to provide churches and schools for the degraded and destitute, without supplying those influences which will permeate and mould the homes, in the arousing and uplifting of the women from their condition of ignorance and indifference. Yet to secure this, we do not need a distinct and separate class of missionaries. The work is combined, and so it is that the schools of the American Missionary Association include other lines of instruction than those usually involved—instruction pertaining to home life, given to the youth in the school-room and to the parents in the cabins; and the teachers become missionaries. Selecting these according to the need of the field, it results that a large number of those employed are women—236 having been engaged in this missionary service during the past year.

What part has the Bureau of Woman’s Work had in this? Just so large a part and so helpful as the Christian women of the North have permitted; and we rejoice to record an advance both in interest and in contributions. In addition to the donations by women to the general work of the Association, twenty-six of these missionary teachers have been sustained by funds raised in Ladies’ and Children’s Missionary Societies of our Congregational churches, or by special collection. In every instance the contributors have been put into correspondence with their missionary representative through the system of monthly letters direct from the field, and thus a better knowledge of the work has been obtained.

These missionary letters have proved an effective agency in imparting information and increasing interest, as many have testified, and one letter per month serves as report to the Association and also to contributors. Is it not reasonable that the excess of letter-writing by teachers should be thus relieved, since their time is so valuable to the needy people about them? Referring to her large correspondence, one of our faithful missionaries writes: “If for all the help we receive in our work so much is required, we shall have but little time for anything else.” Let us reduce all this writing to one letter per month and use each such letter for its full worth, by free circulation.

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Desiring to interest children and youth, that they may become familiar with the American Missionary Association and its work, and contribute habitually to its support, we have selected a “Children’s Missionary” to write especially for little children in mission bands and Sunday-schools, and one who will write also for the young people, both boys and girls, that they may early imbibe a missionary spirit, in consecration of money and of personal service. A collecting card, called “The A. M. A. ‘True Blue’ Card,” has been prepared as an aid in raising money, and this card will be furnished to all who wish the missionary letters.

During the year the Woman’s Bureau has been given direct representation by its Secretary at the meetings of the ladies in their State Unions, and in connection with State Conferences East and West, thereby establishing an acquaintance and confidence of exceeding value, while giving more full intelligence of this great mission field.

This has helped to develop the plan for the ladies of any one church or association of churches to take some definite part in aiding the American Missionary Association to carry forward its work. The suggestion has been cordially acted upon, and with good results. Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin now have each their special schools or missionaries under the American Missionary Association, with whom they have communication through the Bureau of Woman’s Work. Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Michigan are beginning to respond to this call, and we are led to hope that we shall have from each of these States also the help found in concentration and union, thus making twelve States in which this work is hopefully begun.

In this plan for woman’s work in definite lines, it is not our purpose to divert funds from the usual church contributions. There would be nothing lost in this, but neither would there be anything gained. What the American Missionary Association needs is more help than it has hitherto received, and that without diminishing the usual church contributions the ladies will by special measures make a cash contribution annually in the support of teachers. In order to secure the results of the work in schools and homes, prompt action is taken in the establishment of preaching missions and churches, thus requiring a constant advance. It is for this reason, ladies, that we urge upon your attention the fact that a portion of the field is peculiarly yours. If you will do your part, the advance can be made.

Look in upon a single mission station. A group of three buildings attracts our attention as a bit of New England transplanted, a church, a good-sized school-house, and between the two a neat white painted cottage. The missionaries number four, of whom three are ladies from the North. Over 200 children and youth come daily to the school, where these missionary teachers instruct in branches usual in primary to grammar grades, and also in Christian morals and manners, with the Bible for[18] a text-book, seeking earnestly to develop heart, mind and body to honor and righteousness. The little New England home gives practical illustration of what otherwise would be but dimly comprehended by those who have never known a home. It is open, day and evening, to all who will come. The morning devotions, the pleasant social meals, the group around the table in the evening, which the older pupils often join, are phases of home life sharply in contrast to the shiftless, joyless homes about them. With the influence of this home as a starting-point, these teachers, in visiting from house to house, suggest, advise, encourage, finding always the children the most ambitious to improve and make the little cabin like the teacher’s home. You would think this sufficient to occupy these three ladies, and so doubtless they would were it not for the dire need about them. So time is found for a sewing-school, for meetings with the women, for temperance societies, for mission Sunday-schools, and numerous other forms of systematic work—for the purifying of the home life, and to guard the children from the fate of the parents. Who but women could win an entrance into such homes and hearts? It is to counteract the ignorance and desolation of womanhood that woman’s help is needed in this broad field.

But is it more the duty of these to go and teach, than for us who remain in the enjoyment of our great home privileges, to send them? Can any lines be drawn in the personal responsibility resting upon us as Christian women, for the redemption of womanhood in these so long cast out and bound down?

Help is needed, and it is needed now, before the millions of children grow out of our influence and reach, to become like their parents, and even a more dangerous element in society.

How shall the help be given? Every church is an organization which bands together Christian workers. The nearer all can come to the very heart of the great societies appointed to the work of missions, the stronger and warmer are the missionary pulsations. Here is the American Missionary Association, with its forty years’ experience in church and school planting, combined with woman’s work. It has every facility for examining the field and selecting central points with view to the largest results, and it invites and urges your co-operation through its Bureau of Woman’s Work, which is prepared to furnish information and to put you into direct communication with the missionaries. With your own heart full of this need, try so to lay the case before others that they, too, may feel it, and constitute yourselves a church mission band, to raise money to aid the American Missionary Association in carrying on its work in the South, and for the Chinese and Indians.

Thus can the ladies of every church take part with us in overcoming ignorance, superstition and caste prejudice in behalf of womanhood in this our land.

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WORK AMONG THE FREEDMEN.

BY MISS BERTHA ROBERTSON.

Dear Friends:—It gives me much pleasure to bring you a report, which will not be a discouraging one, of a part of the work this grand old American Missionary Association has undertaken. It would be simply impossible to give you a true idea of the work done among the colored people. Already you have heard many accounts, but to fully realize what is being done, you must either see the people over whom the influence of our schools extends, and compare them with those who have not enjoyed such privileges, or enter the field as a worker. In giving an outline of our work at McIntosh, Ga., perhaps a general idea may be gained of what the A. M. A. is doing for the freedmen. The colored people where we are, and I think it is the same throughout the South, have an idea their teachers can do anything from housekeeping to preaching a sermon or mending clocks, but before we should be allowed to undertake similar work in the North, it would be necessary that we should have M.D., D.D., or some other initials after our names.

We teach school. This does not mean exactly what it does in the North. You must remember, when the children come to us, they have had no home training whatever.

You can imagine something of their condition, when you remember that the majority come from miserable log cabins, consisting of one room, where parents and children live huddled together, and where the furniture is a mere apology, consisting generally of a table, bench and two chairs.

They have no hopes and ambition such as white children have. They never think of the possibilities the future may hold for them. When we ask our boys and girls what they are going to do when they leave school, they look at us in blank amazement. This is a new idea to them; they had not looked beyond the present.

Their standard of morality is low. Did you expect anything else? Who were the parents of these children? Slaves. Slaves who in return for hard labor received from the white man the cruelest wrongs and basest indignities; and yet people to-day speak as though this first generation born in freedom should be pure and virtuous. On every side you hear, “They lie, they cheat, they steal, are lazy, and it is simply impossible to do anything with them.” Many times this summer I have heard this sweeping assertion made, and by Christian people, who had simply traveled South, and who drew their conclusions from the servants they met in the hotels. Had they visited some of the A. M. A. schools their statement would not have been quite so extended as to the impossibilities of improvement.

The Bible is the foundation of all our teaching. Religious and moral training first. A half hour each morning is given to devotions. Friday[20] morning the school all meet together for prayer, in which our pupils take part. We have been greatly blessed in these meetings. Friday afternoon the girls all meet in one room, and while they are taught sewing, the Principal of the school gives the boys a talk on morality, in another room. We visit the pupils in their homes, and they, with their parents, feel at liberty to come to our cottage at any time. It is with much pleasure we note the improvement in their cabins and the taste the girls display in trying to make their homes resemble our cottage. After school every Friday afternoon, we have a missionary meeting for the mothers. Here, while they sew, simple religious stories are read to them, and before they go home we have a Bible reading and prayers. Three years ago this society sent ten dollars to the Morning Star, and for the past two years they have sent fifteen dollars to the A. M. A. for the Indians. They are trying to do a little for the Master’s Kingdom.

Besides these meetings, we have Sunday-school and mission-school, and on Saturdays we go to settlements six or eight miles distant to hold mothers’ meetings. Many a poor soul in these meetings has heard for the first time the blessed news of personal salvation.

I know, dear friends, that what I have already said is not new to you; you have heard it many times and are anxious to know if any progress is noticeable. I wish, oh, how I wish, I could tell you of the progress they are making. How they are working under cast-iron laws to pay for their land and get little frame houses. People tell me, in a general way, that they are lazy and there is no hope for them; but I know them to get up at “day clear” and work until sundown to pay for their land under conditions that would discourage nine white men out of every ten. I could name a dozen families around us who have their land paid for, and nice little homes. The children come to school, their tuition is paid regularly and their books are provided as soon as needed.

Are they progressing? For an answer I would like to show you the nice little two-story frame building in which two of our pupils who were married last winter live. On the lower floor is the parlor, dining-room and kitchen; above are the chambers. The pretty chamber set, white spread and pillow-shams, were purchased with the money Sarah earned off her cotton patch.

People say they are dull and stupid. Yet children ten years old will criticise letters received by their parents, and in two and a half years we can fit a boy for the second preparatory year in college. He works his own way, pays for his books, and at the end of a year has enough to pay his traveling expenses home, and when his teacher asks him if there is anything he needs, he replies, “Oh, no; can’t I do something for you?”

People say, “You can’t trust them.” Yet I know of one of my little girls on sewing afternoon, when almost home, returning with a needle that somehow got stuck in her dress; and I have never missed a pencil or book[21] out of my desk, on which there is no lock, during the years I have spent in McIntosh. How often you are told they are ungrateful, and do not appreciate what you are doing for them. Once and forever this idea would be banished from your minds could you be present at our meetings, and hear the fervent, heartfelt prayers of both young and old that God will pour out his richest blessings on this Association and the friends who uphold it. It has also been said they do not care to be educated, they would just as soon remain as they are. We have many pupils in our room who walk sixteen miles every day, and who do a task before leaving home in the morning, and another when they return at night. One of my boys, Josiah Roberts, walked this distance every day last year with the exception of two, making a total of 2,250 miles during the school year, and was not tardy one morning. Can any other school show such a record?

Among the colored people great stress is laid upon “joining the church.” This is one of the evils against which we have to fight. It is the only idea many of them have of what it is to be a Christian. One day, when returning home from making a call on Aunt Judy, the minister’s wife called me, saying the girls wished to see me. She has a number of girls from “up country,” who board with her and attend our school. I followed her into the room where they were, and said, on entering, “Well, girls, what is troubling you?” There was silence for a moment; then one bright girl looked up saying, “Oh, Miss Robertson, won’t you tell us what to do? We thought we were Christians, we belong to the church, but we are beginning to find out that that isn’t enough. We are not living for Christ. Won’t you tell us how to be such Christians as our teachers are?” With a short prayer for help, I pointed them to the Divine Example, and during the remaining days of school we had proof that they were imitating Him. Those girls went out into various parts of the country this summer to teach, carrying Jesus with them. Who can estimate the good they will do?

Every Tuesday and Thursday evening at the cabins the people hold neighborhood meetings. Desiring very much to see how these were conducted, I started out one evening with one of my girls. After walking about a mile through the woods we reached the cabin, which was crowded with dusky faces. As I entered, room was made for me at one side of the fire-place, in which was a crackling fire of pine knots. They asked me to read to them, so I opened my Bible to the CIII. Psalm. How eagerly and attentively they listened as it was read and explained. Then each one took part, either singing or praying. Then together they began to sing their old slave songs, keeping time by clapping and shaking hands, bobbing their heads and scraping their feet. Every part of the body seemed in motion. As I watched the strange scene, I thought, “Will this form of worship die out with the old slaves, or will it be continued by our young people?” I turned at that moment to look at my companion. A woman had just stepped up to her saying, “Why don’t you shake hands?”[22] “Because I see no sense in it,” was the reply. On our way home she inquired of me if I did not think the last part of that meeting was more like a frolic than praising God? How rejoiced I was to hear that young girl express herself in such a manner. Truly, “Our labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Dear friends, I would not give you the impression that there are no discouragements in our work, for there are many. It is with heavy hearts we oftentimes watch some of our scholars returning to their homes in the evening, for we know that there everything tends to overthrow the religious teaching received during the day. Girls going home to mothers who have no sense of purity and virtue, and who cannot realize the degradation of their lives. Sometimes those the most promising, those for whom we have entertained bright hopes for the future, fail us, and we are almost constrained to cry out, “This is greater than I can bear.”

But He, whose promises never fail, has shown us that the seed sown in tears will surely bring a harvest, and the encouragements, together with the joy of being in His service, outweigh the discouragements.

I could tell you of young men who have come to our school addicted to drink, using profane language and tobacco, who to-day are earnest, faithful Christians, the hope of our school. We gladly would keep them, yet we bid them “God speed,” as this year they go to Atlanta University. I could tell you of young girls who, out of the wickedness and immorality around them, have grown up pure, consecrated Christian women, doing what they can for the Master they have promised to serve.

Such is the work the A. M. A. is doing throughout the South. Is there anyone who can afford not to have a part in this glorious work? Think of the privilege of being permitted to help lift these souls, born in ignorance and vice, into the marvellous light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Last year, for want of room and help, we had to turn many away from our doors, and that means sending them back into the wickedness and ignorance from which they desired to rise. When I take up the American Missionary Magazine and read therein the appeals for help, the feeling that comes over me is not unmixed with indignation, for in God’s precious word I read, “If I were hungry I would not tell thee, for the earth is mine and the fulness thereof;” and again, “The silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord of hosts;” and yet the stewards to whom He has entrusted this vast fortune do not allow Him enough to carry on His work. I heard the remark, not long ago, “When money is needed you can’t compensate with prayer.” Faith and works must go hand in hand. Shall not the treasury this year be full to overflowing so that “the barnacles may be cleared off this old ship,” and there be nothing to impede her progress?

Won’t you multiply your prayers for the work and workers, so that this year may be the most prosperous, so that we may indeed “have souls for our hire”!

WORK AMONG THE INDIANS.

BY MISS H. B. ILSLEY.

Six years of life among the Dakotas has taught me many things. Very plainly I recall the first glimpse of their homes, as, October 1st, 1880, I wended my way, the sole occupant of the stage, between Yankton and Yankton Agency, Dakota—a distance of 65 miles, to the home of Rev. Mr. Williamson.

Home warnings were still ringing in my ears—for, had I not been told, “You are doing a foolish thing, seeking only adventure, spending your strength for naught; Indians can’t be educated; you will live in one common room with only a sheet partition, and you will have only a penny candle for your evening luminary, and the Indians may scalp you.” I saw the tents, I saw the one-room log houses, and I met blanket Indians face to face in paint, bells and feathers. Home warnings came vividly before me as possible realities. But in a moment the hearty welcome of Mr. and Mrs. Williamson, and their children too, changed my thoughts. The cheerful sitting room itself had a welcome, and home letters were there to greet me, which uttered no more warnings, neither have I thought of them since, except as fund for amusement. This was my introduction to life on a reservation.

From among varied experiences, I would like first to take you on a recent trip with me, to some of the homes of the Dakotas scattered along the Missouri and its tributaries, in our Oahe field. There are now a number of stations, varying from five to fifteen miles apart, where native teachers are at work; they having been prepared for this at our schools in the past. There are day-schools of between twenty and thirty pupils each. The teachers have religious services on the Sabbath, and also visit among the people, becoming acquainted with each man, woman and child.

At one of these stations, Cherry Creek, the Indians have been associated with Sitting Bull, and it is of their homes I wish to speak as types of the field when taking the first steps toward civilization. Log houses of one room, with the earth only for a floor; bedsteads of planks loosely laid on wooden posts about a foot high from the ground. These serve also for chairs in the daytime. A cook stove is found in the center of each room and this is all. On the log wall hangs the coffee pot, the iron kettle and their extra coats and dresses (if they have any). They still keep their tents and use them in summer, which adds greatly to their comfort.

At most places the women were working industriously; some embroidering with porcupine quills, some preparing corn for drying by braiding the husks into a rope, leaving the various colored ears hanging; others were pounding between stones their native fruits, which they dry and preserve for winter use.

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A few men were building their log houses and plastering the crevices with earth; some were at work in their fields, and many sat with their friends smoking and telling entertaining stories.

The religious influences at these homes are foreign to ours, of course, but there is an influence. The Dakotas worship all nature. They pray to the spirits of heaven and earth; to the winds, the sun, the moon, the stones, and for fear something should be left out—it is summed up in the great mystery—the Great Spirit. All trouble and even sickness comes from evil spirits, hence the young never want to care for the sick, and do not dare for fear they shall be visited with disease too. Near the tipi of one of the women we noticed a large new tent; and we asked, “Whose is this?” “My tipi wakan,” (holy house) she replied. “May we enter?” “Oh, no, we do not allow white people there.” “But,” says my companion, Miss Collins, “they always allow me.” “Do they? well, come.” She led the way inside and told us the following incident:

Her son, a boy of thirteen, had died; and during his sickness all the relatives had promised to make a certain number of gifts, to be finished at a set time after his death. The tent was very large, and half way around on the inside were several rows of Indian travelling cases, which held the gifts. The mother opened one of these and showed us her offerings: moccasins, leggins, tobacco pouches, pipes and many articles for which I knew no name. All of them were beautifully embroidered, and she had handled them so carefully that the deerskin of which they were made was spotlessly clean. This poor sorrowing mother had worked so diligently that her wrist was very lame, but she was being doctored by one of their medicine men, and hoped soon to finish all she had promised. “My son has counted every one of these gifts,” she said, “and when the time comes we will call a feast, and our sacred men will say prayers, and we shall give these gifts away. This will please my son and he will pray for us.” So she hoped to merit blessings for herself and others. Do we not hope that the dear Lord may soon grant this faithful woman a revelation of Himself?

Before leaving this view of Indian life, let me give you a glimpse of our other station, Fort Berthold, through a recent letter from Mrs. Hall, formerly Miss Webb, of Santee. She writes:[25] “You have no idea, and I cannot begin to realize, the depths of heathenism and degradation which surround us. It is only a little walk to the village, and strange sounds come from there all through the nights. There is dancing and all sorts of wickedness going on. I wish our Agent would use his power to put a stop to such things. I have had my first women’s meeting. My plan is this: to have a circle composed of the mothers of our boys and girls, or, if they have no mothers, the woman nearest to them. My first meeting consisted of five. One of them could speak Dakota so I was able to reach her a little. She was an interesting, bright woman, but oh! so dirty! I was wonderfully drawn to her and also to one of her little girls. Here was an opportunity to use my Dakota Bible, which I was so glad to improve. Now I am surrounded by Rees and Gros Ventres, I feel the barrier of language exceedingly. The Rees are around us mostly. The Gros Ventres have taken their farms twenty, thirty, or forty miles away. Here will be such a field for some of our boys. Who will be the devoted, consecrated worker? I feel all we can do now is to pray; and I am sure God will hear and answer.”

Having tried to picture to you our people in their own homes, in parts of the Oahe and Fort Berthold fields, turn with me now to our Santee school, and the record of its boys and girls. Some of these not long since came from similar homes; others are the children of Christian parents and grandparents, and do not know of the native beliefs and customs, except as they are told. We have representatives from ten different tribes, five tribes (and the larger part) belonging to the Sioux or Dakota Nation, the remaining five belonging to the Rees, Mandans, Gros Ventres, Arapahoes and Poncas. The whole number of different pupils last year was 210. This shows a steady increase. They have continued in larger numbers through the year, and those from a distance have enjoyed attending the summer sessions of school. There has been marked progress in their studies and deportment; especially in deportment, for those who used to be so painfully shy, and their voices so faint one must strain the ear to listen, can now, with their acquired knowledge of spoken English, look you confidently in the face and respond with distinct voices. The brightening of the eye and whole countenance makes you sure of the bond of friendship established between teacher and pupil, which gives always a promise of success. In the homes, in the shops (of which there are three—blacksmith, carpenter and shoe shop), on the farm and at school, many through the year have given very satisfactory service. While I would not claim for any, perfection of conduct, yet in simple justice to their efforts I do say, they have tried faithfully to do well what they have attempted, and have succeeded, and so have won the esteem of their teachers in the several departments.

The studies are as yet mostly elementary. The Bible in Dakota and in English has always had a prominent place, in order that the young men and women may be fitted for religious work among their people. We would never lose sight of the fact that the first and highest aim is to form a Christian character that shall go with its influence into their homes and be felt. It is no plan of Santee to isolate the child from the parent, but rather through the child to influence the parent and all home life. Where there is such strong family affection, there is a proportionately strong hope that the greater and larger good can be accomplished in this way. Through the past year there has been an awakening to the claims of their own people upon our pupils as never before. They express desires such as these: “I want to help my people.”[26] “I go alone on the hill and cry to God to bless and save my people.” “Pray for my people that they may all be Christians.” Surely God’s spirit is with them.

During our summer vacation we receive letters from those at home, which give a little insight into their life when they return to old surroundings. One young girl writes, “There are some new Indians here. They have their old ways yet, and I am afraid of them and very careful with them. No Sunday-school, no church and no prayer to-day is just dreadful to me. Remember us in your prayers that we may be able to resist temptation.” Quoting from a letter from one of the young men, “The people here asked me to go to grass dance, but I said ‘I don’t know how to dance now.’ They have dance every Sunday. And the white man, he always took some picture on Sunday. You think he doing right? I think they don’t know how to walk to the church. I know what makes those white men not want to go to church. They didn’t like to hear the truth and doing in the right way that Jesus wants all people to do.” Do not such words as these show that the good seed is taking deep root?

Our organized Christian work embraces three missionary societies and a Y. M. C. A.

The Society of Native Women holds weekly meetings for prayer and sewing. Their homes are far apart and but few can attend at once; yet some one is always ready to welcome the Society and prepare herself to lead the prayer-meeting. They have raised during the year $74.25. The girls of the Dakota Home organized a separate society, October, 1885, with an average attendance of thirty. They raised from September to July about $12. This was done by small weekly offerings, and by the sale of useful and fancy articles at the close of school. The little girls of the Birds’ Nest have also had their society of seventeen members, varying in age from six to twelve years. By little services they have earned $1.20, and a gift of $2 from a gentleman has enabled them to report $3.20 at the Annual Dakota Meeting in September. The Secretary of the Y. M. C. A. handed me his report, from which I quote as follows:

“Our year’s work was quite profitable. We had at first nineteen members. Our work was to bring young men to our meetings, and we appointed four for that special work, though it is the work of us all. We appointed four others to go in different homes and have prayer with those who are not church members; four to visit the sick and find out needs, to help them. Our contribution was rather small, though it is the best we can do; this year $43.16. Out of that, $25.80 goes to help our native missionary account; the remainder is for helping delegates to different meetings. There were twenty-five new members this year, most all associate members, leaving only fourteen active members, but God has blessed us in many ways.”

In conclusion, I think I speak the minds of all the teachers at Oahe, at Fort Berthold and at Santee, when I say we feel much encouraged in[27] this our work for the Dakotas and other Indians. God does bless our efforts, and the hearts of the young are being won to his service. We know it is your work, too. We ask you still to strengthen our hands and hearts in the future. We need your interest and your prayers. We need your hearts with us constantly, that we may be able to do better and greater things. It is a privilege to try to teach those committed to our care, of the love of God and Jesus, which has existed so long for them, even as it has for us. It is a privilege, in place of their fear and worship of all nature, to tell them of the tender love and care of a Heavenly Father. It is a privilege to see the faces brighten and show the peace of God, because their hungry, fainting, souls have found the Master. There may be self-denial in a life among them; but in working for the elevation of a people like this, not simply to be our servants and forever the weaker race, but with an aim to bring them to stand on a level, to be Christian men and women, able to fight the battle of life with a pure faith in the one God and Saviour of us all, is something worthy of self-denial.

RECEIPTS FOR NOVEMBER, 1886.