The American Missionary, Volume 34, No. 11, November 1880

AFRICA.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

The Committee, to whom was referred those portions of the Report of the Executive Committee relating to the work of the Association in Africa, beg leave to submit the following report:

We stand at the opening of a new era in the history of African missions.No real cause for discouragement in the present aspect of affairs presents itself.There is, on the contrary, abundant reason for gratitude to God, that through the darker experiences of the past, in which He has revealed to us more clearly what are His plans, He is leading us to the brighter issues of the future.The logic of events is irresistible.We, of this Association, are driven to certain hopeful conclusions.

1st.Africans for Africa.This is the evident teaching of God’s providence.It is the great lesson of the Mendi mission.The long list of the heroic dead, martyrs for the Gospel in Africa; the vast expenditure of resources necessary in supporting white missionaries; the peculiar dealings of God’s providence with the negro in this country, especially fitting him for this work—all point in this direction.This is the fact which gives peculiar significance to the work of this Association, both in this land and in Africa, and we hail it with encouragement and hope as one element of the new and happier era of lasting success, which we believe will, in the future, attend, under God, the missionary work of that waiting continent.

2d.Need of careful supervision.In view of the facts laid before us, and in view, also, of the important enlargement of the work contemplated, we most heartily commend the determination of the Executive Committee to appoint a general superintendent of the work of this Association in Africa.Such a superintendent appears to us to be a necessity.We believe that he would have more than he could conveniently do in devoting himself to systematizing the work in its various phases, providing a suitable literature for the people, supervising educational and industrial enterprises, keeping account of the financial matters of the missions, giving character and direction to the counsels of the missionaries, studying new regions for advance movements, reporting needs and plans, and thus enlisting interest at home and abroad.We urgently hope, therefore, that the appointment of such a superintendent, residing at some healthful point, easily accessible to the missions, will be made at the earliest practicable moment.

3d.The subject of the Arthington Mission is no longer an open question.You have already determined, upon conditions believed to be practicable, that you will occupy that land for Christ.The money, we have some reason to hope, is coming, the men are coming, the Association is only waiting to begin wisely.In an enterprise of such vast moment to all concerned, care is better than cure.Your Committee believe that they only give voice to the earnest desire of the churches, when they express the hope that, as soon as the necessary funds are received, you will go forward with the same judicious care as in the past, and take the proper steps to ascertain more fully the best ways of entering this open door for enlarged work and greater results.

4th.In view of the events of the year, so full of sadness in the history of many African missions, your Committee recognize the fact more clearly than ever before, that the call of God rests, in an especial manner, upon this Association, to maintain and enlarge this African work in the way of His own appointment.The great results it is achieving for the negro of the South have received a new meaning and impetus in the light of African missions.The whole problem of the negro in America is finding its solution slowly but surely.In the providence of God this Association, in the two-fold relation which it holds to the Freedmen of America on the one hand, and to the pagans of their fatherland on the other, more truly than any other, we believe, holds the key to the evangelization of Africa.

Your Committee, therefore, feel warranted in suggesting that the true attitude of this Association, in view of the report of its missions in Africa, should be one of thankfulness for the experience of the past, encouragement in the work of the present, and earnest expectation for the future.

Henry M.Ladd, Chairman

THE MENDI MISSION.

PROF. T.N.CHASE, ATLANTA, GA.

In November last, I received a letter from Secretary Strieby, asking me to visit the Mendi Mission in West Africa, which invitation, after consultation with my family, from whom I was separated, was accepted, and on the 6th of December I sailed for that land.

My instructions required me to make such changes in the force of missionaries and their respective duties as seemed best, and to obtain information, and report, upon the following topics, viz.: The health of the missionaries; the church, school, and industrial work; finances and accounts; the removal or retention of Good Hope station; extension of the work into the interior, and the use of the Mendi language.

Upon all these topics, and some others, I reported as well as I could to the Executive Committee of the A.M.A., and some extracts have been embodied in their Annual Report of the work of the Association.Most of the information and reflections in this paper will be supplementary to that report.

Between Liverpool and Freetown, Sierra Leone, is a weekly line of steamers, one of which we took; and, after touching at Madeira, Teneriffe, Grand Canary, Goree, and Bathurst, we landed, on the twenty-second day of our voyage, at Freetown. Thence a small steamer conveyed us to Bonthe, where is the Good Hope station of the Mendi mission. The Sherbro river runs between the main land and Sherbro Island, being quite like Long Island Sound; and into it flow several branches that penetrate the Mendi country. On the inside of Sherbro Island, about fifty miles from its northern extremity, where is the mouth of the river, and ten miles from its southern point, is Good Hope, with its church, school and home. The buildings are on the bank of the stream, and the peaceful river, several miles in width, studded with green islands, presents a beautiful view. On the Sherbro Island a few miles south of Good Hope, is Debia, and thirty or forty miles up the Small Boom, a branch of the Sherbro, is Kaw Mendi, which has been described in a recent number of the Missionary

Starting from Good Hope, and sailing north, down the Sherbro twenty miles, and then east up the Bahgroo twenty miles more, we come to Avery.For most of the way the banks of the river are lined with mangrove trees—appearing at high tide to stand in the water—whose trunks rest, at several feet above the ground, upon pyramids of stems or roots, and whose outspread branches send down to the earth numberless rope-like twigs of various sizes, altogether forming an almost impenetrable jungle.But about a mile below Avery the scene changes.The mangroves disappear, the low banks give way to quite high bluffs, and for a long distance stretches a rolling surface, with a soil of partially decomposed iron-stone.In a bend of the river, on a conspicuous bluff, stand the buildings of Avery, the component parts of the station being a home, a church, a school, a saw-mill, a garden, a coffee-farm, and a fakir.

The home is beautiful for situation, being so nicely located as to command a view of both banks of the river for half a mile in each direction; water, rocks and foliage being blended most charmingly.In this home dwell the pastor of the church with his wife, the superintendent of industrial work, and ten little native boys and girls, whose voices cheer the heart of one who loves children, as the little fellows nearly exhaust their stock of English words in saying “amen,” and the end of grace at meals, repeating the Lord’s Prayer, and saying, “Good night, sir,” at their hour for retiring. Some of these buds of promise have such illustrious names as Robt. Arthington, Wm. E. Gladstone, A. K. Spence, Jennie Pike and M. E. Strieby.

It was our privilege to attend church twice, and prayer meeting several times.The dress of the congregation, so far as it went, was novel, these people having never submitted to the cruel tyranny of fashion, but in most cases the amount of apparel met the requirements of decency.Milliners, however, would have a dry time in this region, for I noticed but one hat or bonnet, and I could not tell which.In other cases the head was bare, or surmounted by a turban made from a handkerchief ingeniously twisted and tied.Some of the men had full suits, others only a country cloth wrapped about them, and a few seemed satisfied with simply a large handkerchief about their loins.But, notwithstanding their lack in style and quantity of clothing, they were good listeners, and doubtless carried away much that was said; at least, the writer of this paper found great pleasure in preaching a lay sermon from the text, “God so loved the world,” &c.The tithing master, who paces up and down the aisles, has as little to do in keeping drowsy persons awake as he would in many New England churches.Some entries in the agent’s ledger seem to indicate that attendance upon church and other religious services is not altogether voluntary.One entry reads, “Cut (docked) for staying away from church, one shilling;” and another, “Being late to morning prayers, one shilling.”And in estimating the rigor of this discipline, one need to know that a shilling pays the wages of a common hand a day and a half.They have no trade-unions there.

The school at Avery is taught by Mr. Jowett, a native, who speaks English correctly and fluently.The pupils appeared very much like other children.Some read and spelled well, and some had to “get their lessons over.”Little John Bull showed that he had some surplus energy by thrusting his fist into the mouth of his drowsy neighbor.

The sawmill is said to have been erected by Mr. D. W. Burton, with the assistance of natives alone, and is a monument to his ingenuity, energy and perseverance. Small logs are sawed by a circular, but most of the work is done by an up-and-down, which allows the logs to drag their slow length along sufficiently fast to make the mill pay its way under careful management, with sawyers at fifteen dollars a month, and lumber at forty-five dollars a thousand. Other entries in the ledger show a high state of discipline in this department of mission work. “Neglecting to tie a canoe, one shilling.” “Smoking in the mill, four shillings.” “Neglect of duty, one shilling.” “Not obeying, two shillings.”

The chief productions of the garden are cassada, sweet-potatoes and pineapples.The cassada is a root of milk-white color, and is the leading article of food.It is usually boiled, but sometimes baked, or eaten raw.The sweet-potato flourishes well and is very palatable.The pineapple grows on bushes or shrubs two or three feet high, the fruit standing up in the midst of long, narrow, serrated leaves.The yard has cocoanut, banana, orange and cinnamon trees.In reading lists and descriptions of the African productions, one might conclude that this is the land for an epicure; but the fact is that none of these things take the place of the beef, wheat, vegetables and fruit of the United States, and a person who has lived in the tropics for a little while, longs for a Fulton or Quincy market.

The coffee farm consists of 1,500 trees from two to six feet high, set in rows eight feet apart and just beginning to bear.The coffee grows in pods about the size of a robin’s egg, in each of which are two kernels enveloped in a skin or husk. To keep down the rapid and rank growth of grass with the hoe alone, requires a vast amount of labor. I find that these industries are highly appreciated by travelers and traders, and have made the name of Mr. Burton well known on the coast. The natives have felt their influence already, and will be more and more inspired by them to habits of industry and enterprise.

The remaining element of the station is the fakir, or native village.Most of the houses have mud walls, with bamboo or thatched roofs.They are built without much system, and are huddled together, because, probably, where wars prevail, it is necessary to wall in the towns and villages for defence, and so the houses must not occupy too much ground.Such is Avery, with its material, mental, and religious machinery, all tending to produce an intelligent and stable Christianity.

And now those who have become interested in the experiment of manning the Mendi mission with graduates of A.M.A.schools, are asking whether the plan is successful, and I am supposed to have some information upon this point.It is not quite three years since the first party of these colored missionaries sailed for Africa, two of whom have returned, and the others have had a shorter term of service.So it is too soon to say whether the experiment has been a success or a failure.If the work had been carried on by them in the most approved manner, it would be premature to say that the problem of African evangelization had been successfully solved.And, on the other hand, if the experiment thus far had been an utter failure, it would be unjust to the colored race to conclude, from this one brief trial, that they are incapable of carrying on mission work by themselves in Africa.Those who are most ready to embark in an enterprise of this kind are not always the best qualified.Zeal is needed, and in no leas degree, sound judgment also.

Fisk University graduated its first college class in 1875, and Atlanta hers in 1876, so that from these Institutions have come only five or six small classes that have completed a collegiate education, and the first one of these students to graduate from a full theological course has just received his diploma.And then the officers of the Association have not had their pick from the graduates of their schools.Some of those best qualified for mission work abroad are fully persuaded in their own minds that their field of labor is at home.

So the experiment at the Mendi mission has not been tried under the most favorable circumstances. The officers of the Association have not had, like those of the American Board for its work, a large number of fully educated, mature and consecrated men and women from which to select candidates for their African mission.

But what is the actual outcome of this brief experiment?The colored missionaries have kept alive the churches and schools, have well cared for the buildings and grounds of the stations, have cultivated the coffee-farm, have bought logs, manufactured and sold lumber, have organized a new church of considerable promise, and all but one of them have kept unbroken the brittle thread of life.

[After granting that the mission has as a whole met with serious drawbacks, and suffered from the lack of character and wisdom on the part of some of those to whom it was entrusted, Mr. Chase refers at some length to the following as reasons why mission work in Africa is, and must be, slow: 1.Polygamy; 2.Mohammedanism; 3.The superstitions of the people; 4.The rum trade; 5.The unhealthfulness of the climate; 6.The pernicious influence of traders; 7.The inability of the natives to procure the equipments of Christian civilization. The paper concludes as follows]:

Now, in view of this rather gloomy presentation, does any one say, “Let us abandon the Mendi Mission; money enough has been spent, lives enough have been sacrificed”?I have not written with any such object in view.My purpose has been to state plain facts as they exist, for the consideration of wise men, believing that if there is any lack of tangible results, it is not all the fault of management or workers, and that great things ought not to be expected in the immediate future.

But there are grounds for hope as well as for despondency.The mission has a good name.The labors of Raymond, Thompson and others, are fragrant in the memories of natives and foreigners, so that even the British colonists in Sierra Leone are loud in their praise.The industrial work, instituted and carried on by the wonderful ingenuity and energy of Mr. Burton, has secured the good will of traders and foreign residents.I heard many encomiums upon the mission, especially upon its early history.

The Mendians are a numerous people, occupying a belt of territory of some hundred miles upon the sea, and reaching far back into the interior, all of which region is drained by the Sherbro river, near the mouth of which is located our Good Hope station.Our mission was established among them many years before those of other societies, and its work is far ahead of that of the Wesleyans and Church of England, and if these should greatly increase their efforts there would still be room for us.

By the assiduous labor of Mr. Claflin, the language of the Mendi people has been reduced to writing, an elementary grammar and small vocabulary have been published, and portions of the New Testament translated, so that the acquisition of the native tongue is comparatively easy.

The land and buildings of the mission constitute a valuable property; the Good Hope station, with its regular steamboat communication with Freetown, furnishes a needed base of operations, and the sawmill at Avery will provide lumber for future buildings.

The fact that this mission is right in the heart of the old slave grounds, ought to furnish inspiration for its support.Between it and Freetown on the Bomana Islands were the old slave pens of the infamous and afterward illustrious John Newton.Kaw Mendi is supposed to be the centre of the region from which the Amistad captives were dragged from their homes to be sold into slavery, and is the point at which they settled after their return from these Connecticut shores, through what might be called a series of special providences.At Kaw Mendi it was my privilege to see and converse with two surviving members of that slave cargo.Special interest in such a field as this is something more than mere sentiment.It is the breath of the God of Love sweeping across the chords of the soul.

Then too, in addition to the name and history of the mission, its valuable property, its large field, its written language, and its providential beginning, it has living material that can be utilized in its future extension.The station at Debia, where the lamented Barnabas Root labored for a time, is well carried on by a native educated at the mission; and another efficient helper of the same training is employed at Good Hope.And there are several traders and carpenters, mission-educated, who could render good service in penetrating the interior.

The great call at present is for two or three men of ability and culture, of broad views, of practical sense, of considerable business experience, and of deep consecration, who are ready to enlist for a long term of service, and take the lead in this enterprise.

The foundations have been laid, the material for the structure is at hand and the work is waiting for a wise master-builder.

Let a disciple of the Lord see those people there in their degradation, superstition, and poverty, and then let him visit some of our communities in the South, and see those of the same color, features, and form, living in comfortable houses, clad in decent garments, cultivating large fields of their own, and supporting the school and the church, and let him realize that these pictures present the same race and perhaps the same tribe of people, and that he can be instrumental under Providence, even in an ordinary life-time, in bringing about a repetition of this wonderful transformation, and he ought to need no stronger inspiration.

THE CALL TO THE ASSOCIATION.

REV.H.M.LADD, WALTON, N.Y.

One need not be a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, to be able to predict that the world’s great enterprises of the next century will take hold upon Africa.Already the earnest gaze of the civilized world is fixed upon that opening continent.The spirit of discovery and of commerce have pushed their way into the very heart of its mysterious jungles.Its borders are all alive with the enterprise of nations.Vast preparations are making to open up its wonderful resources, and to find a mart for the products of civilized industry.Truly, as the great French poet has said, “In the nineteenth century the white has made a man out of the black.In the twentieth century Europe will make a world out of Africa.”

The great question is, Shall Christianity keep abreast of this advancing host?Shall the seeds of the Gospel of light be sown broadcast through this dark continent, before the tramping feet of commerce have trodden down its soil into the hardened footpaths of sin?The call of God is emphatic.He has opened a door which no man can shut.That call rests in a peculiar manner upon this Association.It has not been optional with you whether you should enter Africa.The hand of God, manifested in the peculiar circumstances attending the Amistad capture, sent you to Africa.That hand has kept you there; and to-day you are not seeking for yourselves a way up the Nile and into the heart of Central Africa; you are invited there, you are urged there, you are sent there.It will be a great undertaking to go, but it will be a greater mistake not to go.The generous offer of Mr. Arthington, the importance of the field, its unoccupied condition, its easy accessibility, the pledge of needed funds, the fact that it lies right in the very heart of that region cursed by the slave-trade not yet abolished, make it obligatory upon this Association to accept the responsibility and speed forward the work.

But this is not all.Not only do we hear the call of God resting in a peculiar manner upon this Association, heard especially in its earlier and later history, but this Association is peculiarly fitted for the work.It holds in its hands, as the gift of God, a peculiar power.We in this country are just beginning to spell out the true lessons, the real meaning of slavery on our soil.This Association, more than any other under God, has been our teacher.It has shown us what the educated black man, with even his limited facilities, can do; and now it has grasped, and proposes to carry out, a distinctive idea—negroes for negro land.Mr. President, is it too much to say, that, in this distinctive idea, so satisfactorily demonstrated already in the history of African missions, we recognize the star of hope for Africa? Is it not the solution of many a difficulty? We need not refer here to the stimulating reflex influence of this new policy upon the Christian colored people of the South. That it will be great, no one can doubt. But what is to be the future of Africa, as it is dotted over here and there where no white man can live, with these abiding centres of a Christian civilization? What is to prevent the establishment of these points of light throughout that benighted region, until, like the stars of Heaven, they shall flood the dark continent with a galaxy of light, growing brighter and brighter until the day dawn and the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings?

To this end we are called of God to sacrifice, to labor and to pray.The wise plans which this Association have devised give every assurance of success.Not at once, perhaps.We must not expect too much at once, but in the fullness of time.To say that there are not great obstacles in the way, would be to close our eyes to the truth.There are obstacles; but what are obstacles when God is with us?He has not forgotten Africa.That continent, which holds nearly one-sixth of the human race and is equal in area to all Europe and North America combined, was surely included in that great command, “Go ye into all the world and disciple all nations.”The promises—are they not ours?Will He not be with us alway, yes, even unto the end of the world?Is not the final victory assured, even that victory that overcometh the world—our faith?Are we not taught to pray, “Thy kingdom come”?Surely God’s will is yet to be done on earth as it is in Heaven, and these nations are yet to become the nations whose God is the Lord.The day shall come.It may be ages from this time—but to the thought of God, and to the life of humanity, ages are but days—when Ethiopia shall not stretch out her hands in vain.

Let us, then, go confidently forward in the line which God has marked out for us.Let us help the Freedman of the South to fulfil his destiny.His bondage over, having safely passed through the Red Sea of blood, and been brought forward by the pillars of cloud and of fire, let us now open to him the land of his fathers, and bid him enter it to drive out the strange gods, and to proclaim the unsearchable love of our God.

Oh, then, speak unto this children of Israel that they go forward, and songs of thanksgiving shall arise from the groaning heart of Africa.

THE INDIANS.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

Your Committee, to whom has been referred that part of the Report of the Executive Committee which concerns the American Indians, beg leave to report as follows:

We recognize with gratitude the work which has been accomplished by the American Missionary Association, in behalf of the Indians, in its missionary and educational departments.

We especially recognize and commend the success of the experiment of bringing youth from the tribes, and educating them at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute and at Carlisle Barracks; and, at the same time, we record our decided opinion that the schools on the reservations, while the reservations are continued, must be relied upon as among the most efficient agencies for improving the condition of the Indians.

We believe that the possibility of civilizing the Indians is no longer an open question, as is proven by what has already been realized at the Fort Berthold, Lake Superior, S’Kokomish, and all the agencies.

But your Committee desire emphatically to express the opinion that all attempts to civilize and Christianize the Indians must be slow and unsatisfactory until there is a radical change in the relation between the Indians and the United States Government.The Committee, therefore, desire to reaffirm two resolutions adopted at the last Annual Meeting of the American Missionary Association, as follows:

Res.1.That the aim of this Association shall be, as far as possible, and as rapidly as possible, to secure for the Indians—

(1.)A legalized standing in the courts of the United States.

(2.)Ownership of land in severalty.

(3.)The full rights of American citizenship.

These three things, we believe, are essential, if the Indian is to be either civilized or made a Christian.

Res.2.That to this end the members of this Association will do all in their power to make the Indian question a pressing question, until the attention of Congress is so secured, and held to it, that the legislative enactment necessary to bring about these changes be completely accomplished.

Amory H.Bradford, Chairman

CAUSES OF THE MISMANAGEMENT OF INDIAN AFFAIRS.

REV.A.H.BRADFORD, MONTCLAIR, N.J.

In the management of Indian affairs there has been little, if any, progress since colonial days.

I.The New World was supposed to belong to its discoverers, and the Indians also, because they belonged to the land.When England transferred her colonies to the new Republic, it was without any mention of the aboriginal inhabitants, or their rights.Trees and stones could not have been more completely ignored.With the single exception of the Treaty of 1803, by which Louisiana was obtained, all the Indian population was unconditionally transferred with the land.“In our first treaty of peace with Great Britain, by which the latter yielded all claims to the country as far as the Mississippi River, not a single stipulation appears in regard to the aboriginal inhabitants, and when they were received they were considered to be in the same situation,—as far as their legal status was concerned,—as the nation by which they were surrendered had placed them.”(The Indian Question, Otis, p.51.)What was that status?The Indians were many; the colonists were weak.The stronger compelled the weaker to treat with them as sovereign tribes.The weaker became stronger.The same method was pursued then because of jealousy of the French.Treaties were made, and what the colonists could not compel by force they accomplished by intrigue.In the wars between England, Spain and France, the aborigines held the balance of power, and thus compelled their own recognition.When the war for independence came, the same was true. Both British and colonists sought their friendship, and paid for it. Thus, in a word, grew up the recognition of the sovereignty of the tribal and national organizations. Thus commenced the atrocious policy of quietly, by treaty and gifts, removing the Indians westward, as lands were required for settlement. Since the revolution, until 1871, when the treaty system was abolished, the same general plan has been followed.

In everything else, there has been progress.In the management of our Indian affairs, we are hardly a step in advance of those who, in 1753, in forming a unity of action against the savages, organized the germ of our Union of States.

II.The Reservation system seems to have had its birth in the administration of Jefferson.The object was to make conflict impossible until the natives could be civilized by isolating them.Education was to be provided, missionaries sent, protection guaranteed until they should become new men.Did the plan succeed?It had hardly been commenced before its failure was recognized.It has been continued, and the longer it has lasted the worse it has failed.

The removal to reservations was commenced in earnest under President Jackson, who advised Congress to set apart an ample district west of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any state or territory, to be guaranteed to the Indian tribes as long as they should occupy it; each tribe having the management of its own portion of the district, and being “subject to no other control from the United States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier, and between the several tribes.There the benevolent may teach, and an interesting commonwealth may be raised up, destined to perpetuate the race and attest the humanity and justice of this Government.”(Otis, p.96.)President Van Buren was not less sanguine than President Jackson.Never were golden dreams more ruthlessly shattered.As well might our representatives have attempted to tame a herd of buffaloes by corraling them at the base of Mt.Hood, as to attempt to civilize the Indians by separating them from all civilizing influences.As well might you plant a keg of nails and expect it to come up a piano, as to seclude such wild natures on the prairies, or between mountains, and expect peace and harmony to result.The policy of removal did not benefit the Indian, and has brought but temporary relief to the country, by “the elimination of a troublesome element in society.”It has not been pursued to any great extent during the last twenty-five years, but still the massing of the Indians in two or three great reservations seems to be the ideal of our legislators, an ideal which has not a single support either in reason or experience.

Then the reservations have been such only in name.The Black Hills territory belonged to the Dakotas only a few years ago.You remember the story.Reports of mineral wealth reached the outside world.Emigration commenced.But that country had been set apart by treaty to the Dakotas.“Yet,” say Felix R.Brunot, “every step from the moment of making that peace with the Indians, has been in the direction of depriving them of the very land which the Peace Commission gave them.”Though there were wealth in the Black Hills, our nation should have said, and stood by the declaration—“Gentlemen, that Black Hills country belongs to the Indians.If those mountains were built of solid gold, and those river beds were paved with diamonds, not one of you should be allowed there, unless in honorable trade you had purchased the right.”But adventurers crowded in, and, because they had white skins, the sacred covenants of the nation were broken.What wonder that when the land was assigned them they eagerly asked, “How long will it be that the President will keep his promise?”Why should they be loyal to the Government? The Rev. Mr. Sherrill, of Omaha, writing in the Advance, says, “The commonly accepted report is, that when Commissioner Hayt visited Spotted Tail on the Upper Missouri, and attempted to misinterpret his promise to the tribe, Spot shook the written document with Mr. Hayt’s name at the foot of it in the Commissioner’s face, called him a ‘bald-headed liar,’ and walked out of the tent indignantly refusing to have anything more to do with such a forked tongue.”

The reservation system has not secured to the Indians permanent homes; it has not preserved them from molestation; it has not improved them either morally or physically; it has not relieved the Government of care or expense; from beginning to end, it has been a stupendous fraud and failure.

III.I turn now to the Indian treaty system of the United States, one of the most fearfully and wonderfully concocted systems that human stupidity ever devised.It was in operation until 1871.More than three hundred and sixty-six treaties with native tribes are recorded in the statute books since the adoption of the Constitution.If it is remembered that in many of these covenants several tribes were united, the actual number of treaties is multiplied to nearly one thousand.It would puzzle a philosopher to get at the true inwardness of this system.The fact is, that in colonial days, and almost ever since, the Indians have been treated with as if they were independent and sovereign States.As such, they were distinct from United States subjects, and could only be reached under the forms of international law.In the language of Justice McLean of the Supreme Bench, “The President and Senate, except under the treaty-making power, cannot enter into compacts with the Indians or with foreign nations.”That is plain; and if the Indians had always been treated according to that decision, there would have been less trouble.But Congress has claimed jurisdiction over them, and while the President and Senate were making treaties, has held each member of the tribes individually amenable to such laws as it might choose to enact.The Court decides that they are to be treated with as independent tribes, and Congress proceeds to manage them as a portion of our dependent population.

Two illustrations.The Wyandotte Treaty of 1855 declared the Indians of that band to be citizens of the United States.The treaty with the Pottawatomies in 1862 placed it in the power of the President to confer citizenship upon the members of that tribe.Now, if the Indians were foreigners, they could become citizens only by naturalization, according to rules prescribed by Congress.The treaties with them imply that they are foreigners; but the courts have decided that naturalization laws do not apply to them; therefore it is evident that it is competent for Congress, and no other power, to confer upon them political rights.Yet, in the instances cited, the treaty-making power assumed these rights.The Executive and Senate abandoned, at length, the process of making citizens by simple declaration.In 1866, they compelled the Delawares who wished to become citizens, to appear in the United States District Court, and take out naturalization papers the same as aliens.They first made them foreigners in order to make them citizens.But that was of doubtful legal validity.Then, to crown this wonderful achievement, it was decided that the children of those thus naturalized were still foreigners, and must choose for themselves whether they would enter the tribal relation, or seek citizenship by naturalization.A white man who could unravel this snarl would be a genius; to an Indian, it must have been transparent as the waters of the Missouri.I give this instance to illustrate the utter confusion which has characterized the administration of our Indian affairs, and the absolute impossibility for any one to be elevated by such stupidity.

My second illustration is the Indian Territory itself.A civil government exists there, subject to Congressional dictation.Yet Congress never had anything to do with it, and never authorized it.Its powers have never been defined or controlled by statute.It was a scheme of the treaty-making power of government alone.It is an organization devised between tribes, recognized as independent, and is to take cognizance of matters “relating to the intercourse and relations of the Indian tribes and nations resident in said territory and represented, but can pass no act inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, the laws of Congress, or existing treaties; or any act affecting the tribal organizations, laws, or usages.”Each tribe is independent of this so-called legislature in all its own affairs.Each tribe has its own laws; and its own courts, both civil and criminal, are the last resort; and by treaty, Congress is denied the right to interfere with, or annul, their present tribal organizations, rights, laws, privileges and customs. Thus, if an Indian commits murder in his own tribe, he can be brought to justice only by his own tribe.“The non-treaty Indians can freely rob, murder, trade with each other, without incurring responsibility to United States authority.”(Otis, page 115.)If a white man joins an Indian tribe and commits murder, who tries him, the United States courts or the tribal?Exactly that issue has arisen.A United States marshal was condemned because he attempted to take forcible possession of a United States citizen, who was also a citizen of the Cherokee nation, and who was accused of the murder of a Cherokee squaw.Other inconsistencies might be enumerated.Treaties have guaranteed privileges that only Congress had the right to grant.When the United States court comes in conflict with the treaty, then confusion and bloodshed follow, and the absurd clumsiness of official action is hidden beneath the cry of shocking cruelties by Indians, when they are only defending rights guaranteed by solemn covenant.

Two other facts may be barely mentioned.Treaties have been repeatedly solemnized which both parties knew perfectly well could not be kept; as in the case of the covenant with the Mississippi and other bands of Chippewas in 1855, when the treaty included a thousand little details of moral conduct; or the treaties of 1855 and 1865 with the Indians of Oregon and Washington Territory, where all sacredly promised to take a temperance pledge.

The other fact is that, when Congress has ratified Indian treaties, the prerogative has been repeatedly asserted of changing the treaty without consultation with the Indians.In the Cheyenne Treaty of 1861, the Senate struck out article eleven, one of the most important articles, and then held the tribe to the treaty as it chose to amend it.

IV.Two changes must be wrought in our Government before these wrongs can be permanently righted.

1.The people must be aroused.In 1862, Secretary Stanton said to a committee who went to him demanding justice for the Indians: “If you come to Washington to tell us that our Indian system is a sink of iniquity, and a disgrace to the nation, we all know it.This Government never reforms an evil until the people demand it.When the hearts of the people are touched, these evils will be reformed, and the Indians will be saved.”When the people demand justice to the Indian, and officers know that swift retribution will be meted to those who longer trifle with his interests, Indian Commissioners will no longer dare to condone corruption, and Interior Secretaries will cease to stand in the way of righteousness.

2.There must be a reform in our system of civil service.In British Columbia, for the last hundred years, there has been spent not one dollar for Indian wars, and not one life has been lost.In the United States, thousands of lives have been lost, and more than $500,000,000 expended.What do these facts signify?That in British Columbia they have had able and honest men in the civil service; and in this Republic, imbecile and corrupt men.Contrast parts of the two systems. With us the Indians are under the control of the Secretary of the Interior, and the Indian Department is but one of numerous important and complex departments under the supervision of that officer—each one enough to tax to the full the ability of a trained statesman.With us, the Indian Department must take its chances with others, and he who ought to give it his entire attention is “Jack-of-all-trades and master of none.”In British Columbia, the Minister of the Interior is the actual superintendent of Indian affairs, and directly responsible for them as the most important part of his official duties.With us, in our Indian, as in our civil, service, which is as vicious as any system can be, officers are continued only during party supremacy.

In the Dominion, officers are continued for life or good behavior, with the obvious benefit, in matters requiring special skill and experience, produced by a civil service well established, on a correct system of selection, which with us has only recently been attempted.

The trouble with us has been, we have not chosen our best men to do our most difficult work.We have had two vast problems to solve in our history—the problem of Reconstruction and this Indian problem.“In both cases, where France, England, Russia, would have used the flower of their educated youth, their most honored soldiers, their wisest lawyers and scientific men, we collected a large horde of broken-down men of all trades and callings, and men of none, the riff-raff of caucuses and nominating conventions, in fact, the very refuse of our busy and prosperous society,” and gave to them to solve, the most difficult and delicate questions of public policy which statesmen have ever faced on this continent.The failure was inevitable in the one case as in the other.

V.In the light of the experience of the last century, I think we may safely make the following affirmations.

All tribal distinctions ought, as soon as possible, to be abolished by the Government, and the Indian treated the same as any other man.

The Reservation system should be given up, and Indians be allowed to go and come whenever and wherever they may choose.Land should be allotted in severalty.If the Indian has a hard time, the discipline will probably educate him.

Education should be compulsory, and for a reasonable time, under patronage of the Government.

All the rights and penalties of citizenship should be accorded to the Indian, as to the Italian, Irishman, and Negro.

The Indian should understand that this is a final settlement of his case, and that now he must shift for himself as other citizens have to do.With justice, and the protection and penalties of law awarded to him, let the Indian take his chances in the struggle of life.The germ of civilization is obedience to law.Put him under state and national law.The fittest will probably survive, Darwin or no Darwin.

So much for the Government.Then let Christianity, through its voluntary agencies, do the rest, as it well knows how to do, and is so grandly doing through the American Missionary Association.There are difficulties attending the execution of these suggestions. This consideration would require time that I have not at my disposal. They are not insuperable to a wise statesmanship.

When Dr. Riggs was visiting and preaching in the Indian Territory, one day there sat before him an old chief, nearly a hundred years of age, listening attentively. It was the missionary’s last sermon before leaving. When the service was over, the old man went up to Dr. Riggs, and reaching out his scrawny hand to the missionary’s snow-white beard, grasped it firmly, and turning him to the full sun-light gazed intently into his face for a long time. “What do you do that for?” at length said the Doctor. “Because I want to know you in the resurrection,” the old chief slowly replied. His people had been scattered, his children killed, his horses stolen, he had been driven from the home of his childhood to a strange land. While he waited to die, this noble old apostle, in whom Christ dwelt, crossed his pathway. The speech and tenderness were so strange, coming from a white man, that he wanted to be sure of recognizing him after death. “I want to know you in the resurrection.” How many white men will the Indians want to meet in the resurrection? It is time these awful wrongs were righted. It is time we learned with the wise fool in A Fool’s Errand, “The remedy for darkness is light; for ignorance, knowledge; for wrong, righteousness.”It is time the people were roused.It is time a tide of public opinion, demanding justice for the Indian, was rolled in upon our rulers, too strong to be longer resisted.If the Government never reforms until the people demand it, let us be sure that we voice our part of that demand, loud and clear, at once and unmistakably.

LETTER FROM GENERAL FISK.

[It was anticipated up to a late day by the committee of arrangements that General Fisk would be present at the meeting and would make an address upon the Indian Report.In his unexpected and compelled absence he kindly sent the following letter:]

It is almost two hundred and fifty years since Captain John Mason, at the head of ninety men, more than half of the fighting force of the Connecticut Colony, marched against Sassacus, and almost within bow-shot of where your Annual Meeting is to be held, fought the Pequods.It was the first Indian war in New England.Thomas Hooker, “the light of the Western Churches,” famed as “a son of thunder,” delivered to Mason the staff of command.The very learned and godly Stone spent nearly the whole night in importunate prayer for success to crown the expedition, which on the morrow sailed past the Thames, hoping by strategy to reach the Pequod fort unobserved.Under cover of night, the soldiers of Connecticut made the attack upon the Indians.“We must burn them,” shouted Mason, who himself cast a firebrand to the windward among the light mats of their cabins.The helpless natives climbed the palisades as their blazing encampment assisted the English marksmen in taking good aim.Six hundred Indians, men, women and children, perished, most of them in the hideous conflagration.Capt.Miles Standish had twenty years earlier slaughtered Witawamo and others of the Massachusetts tribe, the knowledge of which, as it reached the gentle spirited Robinson in Leyden, caused the pastor to write to Bradford, “concerning the killing of those poor Indians, of which we heard at first by report and since by more certain relation.Oh, how happy a thing had it been if you had converted some before you killed any.”

“The principle and foundation of the charter of Massachusetts,” wrote Charles II. at a time when he had Clarendon for his adviser, “was the freedom of liberty and conscience, not only for the Puritan but for the natives, whom the ministers might win to the Christian faith.” The instructions to Endicott as to the rights of the Indians on the far-away Atlantic coast, and their duty to them, were clear and emphatic. “If any of the savages pretend right of inheritance to all or any part of the lands granted in our patent, endeavor to purchase their title, that we may avoid the least scruple of intrusion. Particularly publish that no wrong or injury be offered to the natives.” The colony seal was a wandering Indian with arrows in his right hand, with the motto, “Come and help me.” For more than two hundred and fifty years, from our Indian tribes, as they have been steadily driven before the surging tide of civilization from the Atlantic to the Pacific, has there been the constant cry of the weaker to the stronger forces of the continent, “come and help me.” Many who will be in attendance upon your Annual Meeting have seen “Standing Bear” of the Poncas, who was wantonly and wickedly driven from his home on the banks of the Missouri by the Government, and heard him tell his simple story of wrong endured, and heard his appeal, “Come and help me.” With sublime faith that God intended all men to be free and equal, all men without restriction, without qualification, without limit, let us listen to their appeal, and respond with the best help in our power to contribute.

Never before in the history of this country has there been such an awakening in behalf of the Indian. Never before such healthy sentiment for justice and fair play for the original owners of the soil over which our fifty millions of prosperous people unfurl the flag of the free. The Indian question, like the Ghost of Banquo, is at every banquet. It will not down until “Birnam wood do come to Dunsinane.” Hundreds of years of broken faith, during which ambuscades, massacres, fired Indian camps, blazing wigwams and smouldering embers of burned villages, have strewn the pathway of our march of empire, until now upon every lip is the interrogatory, What shall be done with the Indian? All the Indian asks, all his friends ask for him, is a fair chance

It has been well said that in good faith and good feeling we must take up this work of Indian civilization, and at whatever cost do our whole duty in the premises. We owe them protection of the property they own, endowments of money, forbearance, patience, care, education, citizenship

Let not another Indian be removed from his home, except as he removes himself by his own volition.

Let every acre of land now occupied under treaty, or by any other document by which the United States have “ceded and relinquished” the same, be held sacredly theirs forever, unless the citizen Indian chooses to sell it.

Let there be no more the policy of seclusion, but rather that of absorption.

Let all covenants between the Government and the Indian be executed as promptly and faithfully as with any other person.

Let the Indian citizen have his own home with all the protection of National and State Governments.

Let the Indian citizen have the same protection of law, and require from him the same obedience to law as governs in the case of the white man and the black man, and then the Indian will work out his own destiny.

Let us say with that quaint philosopher, Hosea Bigelow, that

Trusting that the American Missionary Association will keep its standard on the Indian question “full high and advancing,” I remain,

With very great respect,

Your obedient servant,

Clinton B.Fisk

THE CHINESE.

“CALIFORNIA CHINESE MISSION.”

Auxiliary to the American Missionary Association.

President: Rev. J. K. McLean, D. D. Vice-Presidents: Rev.A.L.Stone, D.D., Thomas C.Wedderspoon, Esq., Rev.T.K.Noble, Hon.F.F.Low, Rev.J.E.Dwinell, D.D., Hon.Samuel Cross, Rev.S.H.Willey, D.D., Edward P.Flint, Esq., Rev.J.W.Hough, D.D., Jacob S.Tabor, Esq.

Directors: Rev.George Mooar, D.D., Hon.E.D.Sawyer, Rev.E.P.Baker, James M.Haven, Esq., Rev.Joseph Rowell, Rev.John Kimball.

Secretary: Rev. W. C. Pond. Treasurer: E.Palache, Esq.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

Your Committee, to whom was referred that part of the Report of the Executive Committee which concerns the Chinese, beg leave to report as follows:

1.That in estimating the success of their work, the difficulties under which it has been prosecuted must be borne in mind; the fact that it has been carried on in the face of an intense hostility to the presence of Chinese upon our shores, extending not only to the lower classes, but also, in not a few localities, including influential clergymen and laymen, and became so far a dominant sentiment, that both the great political parties have yielded to it by inserting anti-Chinese planks in their platforms.

2.That this work ought to be not only generously supported and vigorously maintained, but, so far as practicable, extended, especially by the establishment of schools and mission work among the Chinese in the mines.

3.That while your Committee recognize the difficulties in the way of establishing a mission in China, they also see that there would be great advantage, both direct and indirect, in thus connecting a foreign with the home work, and they recommend the Board to give serious consideration to the proposition, and to carry it into execution, if, on a more thorough inquiry, it shall be found practicable to do so without interfering with the other work of the society, or with the work of other Evangelical missions in China.

Lyman Abbott, Chairman

THE TWO METHODS.

REV.LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D., NEW YORK.

* * * Let us recognize, then, that there is a possibility of danger to us, religious danger from the influx of a godless and atheistic people, political danger from the influx of a vast amount of cheap labor, danger from a deluge coming from an ocean almost unfathomable and immeasurable.How shall we meet that danger?Looking down the vista of the years, how shall we prepare ourselves for it and protect ourselves from it?

There are two methods; and I wish simply to set these two methods before you as clearly and as distinctly as I can.

The one method is that of self-protection by force; the method of building a Chinese wall and saying, “You shall not come upon our shores;” the method of the brick-bat; the method of the mob; the method which has been succinctly put in Dennis Kearney’s platform, “The Chinese must go,” and more genteelly and courteously put in the Democratic and Republican platforms, which mean the same thing; the method which declares, “We will not allow this people upon our shores to live among us, to work with us, to share our benefits;” the method of a prohibitory legislation.

In respect to that method, first, we have no right to adopt it“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”Go through the first five books of the Bible and find how it is iterated and reiterated again and again, that the soil of this earth belongs to God.No people have a right to set themselves down upon a territory and say to their brother people, “You shall not come.”We have a right to say that if they come they shall come subordinate to the laws and the institutions that have been established here; that they shall behave themselves; that they shall obey the system of laws which we have found good for ourselves and for our children; but we have no right to build a wall of adamant around the land and say, “Keep out.”By what right do the children of the immigrants of 1620 say to the immigrants of 1880, “You shall not set foot upon this soil”?By what right do the sons of the Pilgrim Fathers say to the pilgrims of this generation, “You shall keep off”?When did that right come to us?Could we have said it in 1700, in 1750, in 1800?At what epoch in our national history accrued to us the right of drawing the line, building the wall, closing the gates, and saying, “Thou shalt come no more?”

I shall not enter in detail into the argument on this subject.I know what is the reply: “If I have a farm of a hundred acres, may I not keep tramps off?”No nation has found itself without difficulty and threatened danger, that has attempted to keep the laborer off of land which was not being worked.To-day Ireland is wrestling with the labor problem, and England is wrestling with the labor problem, because there are vast tracts of unoccupied, untilled, uncultivated land from which the laborer is excluded.So long as our mines lie undug; so long as our prairies lie uncultivated; so long as our streams run their course and no music of the mills sings along their lines, so long industry has a right to its home under our flag and within our borders.

And we have not the power if we had the right. Congress does not make laws; Congress only declares and interprets them. There is but one law-giver—God Almighty; and all that judges and governors and law-makers and Congresses and Parliaments can do, is to ascertain what are God’s laws and interpret them. And God’s law is the law of liberty, and all His laws are to conserve liberty. Never in the history of the world has a nation succeeded in stopping one of these great migratory movements. Out of four hundred million people, in one year almost as many corpses lie upon the ground in China as were strewed on all our battle-fields, and over every one a grave-stone might be erected with the inscription, “Died of hunger!” Why, you might better expect to stop the charge of a herd of buffaloes rushing madly along with the prairie on fire behind them, by means of a Virginia rail fence, than to stop the immigration of a great nation, driven from its home by pursuing famine, with an act of Congress. You could easier dam up the waters of the Gulf Stream with bulrushes.

In the year 250 the Goths and Vandals won their first victory over Roman arms on the Roman boundary.The Roman empire adopted Dennis Kearney’s platform; it said, “We will not have the Goths and Vandals on our territory.” The Roman empire was clad in mail from its head to its foot; it was an army of soldiers; it put forth the greatest military power the world has seen to stop the great migration. For a hundred and fifty years the conflict went on, but year by year the valiant warrior was beaten back, and it was ended at last with the sack of Rome. But 250 years before these immigrants made their first appearance on the border line, a little decrepit Jew made his appearance in Rome as a prisoner. He lived there two years, bound, chained to the soldier that guarded him, and he brought there the story that God had shown himself in Jesus Christ, His Son, who had lived, suffered, died, risen, and ever lived for them. In those 250 years, Christianity under various persecutions, had grown little by little, until, when the Goths and Vandals made their appearance, it comprised one-twentieth of the population of Rome—fifty thousand out of a million. It sent Bishop Ulfilas with his Gothic Bible, to the north; it sent Augustine into England; it sent St. Patrick—Protestant before the time of Protestantism—to preach a pure gospel in Ireland. One and another and another went forth, bearing the cross; and when at last the Goths and Vandals had conquered the armed Romans, so thoroughly had that Christian church done its work, that, says Lecky, the Christian church conquered the barbarian world almost in the same hour in which the barbarian world conquered Rome.

We are told that we cannot convert the Chinese.Why, Christianity, while it was yet in its cradle, without churches, without schools, without a printing press, without literature, Christianity infantile vanquished the serpents that had strangled the military Hercules.If we cannot, with the Christianity that we possess to-day, vanquish the semi-civilized paganism of China, we had better get a new Christianity, for we sorely need it.

Let us look, then, at the other method of protecting our nation from the incursion of the Chinese.The one is the barbaric method, the method of military Rome; the other is the Christian method, the method of the successors and followers of the Apostles and of the Lord Jesus Christ.What is this method?What does it involve?It involves welcoming the Chinese to our shores; throwing open the gates; recognizing the truth that the earth is the Lord’s, and that all peoples are entitled to make their home here if they will; welcoming them to all the protection—I do not say to all the powers—of citizenship; holding over them the shield of the Declaration of Independence, and declaring for them the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”It involves bringing them into our schools and into our churches; teaching them that which we teach ourselves and our children; teaching them those things upon which our own intelligence and prosperity and our own national life are based.Above all, it involves teaching them those great principles of Christianity which are the very conservation of national force and the saviours of the nation.It involves teaching them that there is one God; that we are all one family, brethren in the Lord Jesus Christ, doubly brethren—born of God and redeemed by Christ; it involves teaching them immortality, and all the glorious hopes and liberations that come from the faith of immortality; it involves all the assimilating and unifying force and power that come from teaching the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of the human race.

And, observe, you cannot carry on these two methods simultaneously.You cannot say, “We will exclude the Chinese, but if they do come here we will convert them.”You cannot ask the Chinaman to kneel down with you and say, “Our Father which art in Heaven,” and then, when he has finished, take him by the throat and toss him into the Pacific. You cannot say to a Chinaman, “You are my brother, get out of here!” You cannot be both Christian and Pagan; you must take your choice.

It is said that the Chinese cannot be converted, that they are impervious to Christian influences, and that they repudiate and reject all such. What have been the Christian influences that have been showered upon them? They have been impervious to the guns of England when they flamed out, “You shall take opium!” they have been impervious to the influence of Dennis Kearney’s brick-bats when they have been flung at them in the street. I do not wonder that they were impervious to that kind of Christianity. Cannot be converted? Men call this an age of scepticism; but the unbelief that doubts the first chapter of Genesis, that thinks the story of the Fall is a parable, that is uncertain whether the whale did really swallow Jonah or not, that doubts whether those three men went into the fiery furnace unconsumed, is as nothing compared with the unbelief that lurks sometimes in our pulpits and oftener in our pews, that doubts the declaration that the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is the power of God unto salvation to every man that believeth—not to every Anglo-Saxon man, not to every white man, not to every cultured man, but to every black man, and red-skinned man, and copper-colored man, and Indian man, and Chinaman,—to humanity. It is as nothing compared with the infidelity that puts under its foot the obligation: “I am debtor to the Jew, and to the Greek, to the bond and to the free, to the white, to the black, to the Indian, to every man, because for every man my Christ died.”

We cannot convert the Chinese?Really it does not lie in us to say they are beyond hope.Let me read you the features of a portrait:

“Huge, white bodies, cool-blooded, with fierce blue eyes and reddish flaxen hair; ravenous stomachs, filled with meat and cheese, heated by strong drinks; of a cold temperament, slow to love, home stayers, prone to drunkenness!* * pirates at first; * * sea-faring, war, and pillage, their only idea of a freeman’s work; * * of all barbarians the strongest of body and heart, the most formidable, the most cruelly ferocious; * * torture and carnage, greed of danger, fury of destruction, obstinate and frenzied bravery of an over-strong temperament, the unchaining of the butcherly instincts; * * with a great and coarse appetite.”—[Compiled from Taine’s English Literature, vol.I pp.30–33.]Do you recognize it?It is the portrait of your ancestors and mine; and if Christianity can make out of that picture such an audience as I see before me to-night, what may it not make out of China?

To-night again we see in the heavens, brighter and clearer by far than ever Constantine saw in his fabled vision, that flaming cross, and under it the motto, “By this sign I will conquer.”That motto, enforced by the history of eighteen centuries of triumph, I set before you; the Roman spear on the one hand and the flaming cross on the other: choose you by which sign you will vanquish the Chinese.

OUR GROUNDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT.

REV.SAMUEL SCOVILLE, STAMFORD, CONN.

[Mr. Scoville compared the work of the Association to the river which went out of Eden and became into four heads, the Pishon, flowing to the land of gold and the Havilah of the East, representing its Chinese work.After forcibly depicting the importance of the work as involving the regeneration of China, the good name of the Christian Church, the honor of Christ, and the perpetuity of our political institutions, the address closed with a statement of the grounds for encouragement that this work can and shall be done. It is this latter part only for which we have room, as follows]:—

I turn now to the grounds we have for encouragement that this work can and shall be done.

1.The first is found in God’s word.We ask ourselves, Is it His purpose that this work shall be done, that those heathen on our Western coast and in China shall be converted, or must they be given over to destruction?And we read the promise of God to His dear Son: “I will give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance,” and that means the people of California, a large part of them, “and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession,” and that means China.

Is there anything special about the Chinese nature that puts them outside the recuperating, renewing forces that exist in Jesus Christ?And I read: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” and again, “that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man.”And I know that in that humanity and in that provision the Chinese are included.I hear Him say, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden,” and I know that the wretched millions of China are meant.

But may it not be true that the Chinese are so lost to spirituality that this whole power of renewing forces will be lost upon them?I read: “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.”And I know there is a sweet attractiveness in the Saviour of men dying for them, that is able to break up the dull apathy of Chinamen as well as others.

But is there power enough to wake up the Christian churches as well as the Chinese from their apathy?And I read that prayer for us, “that ye may know what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe according to the working of His mighty power which He wrought in Christ when he raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the Heavenly places,” and I know that individuals and churches, even the whole Christian land, can be breathed upon and quickened by that resurrection life.And then the Divine Commission breaks in upon all our delay, saying, “Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” and I know that that means us, and that the time is now.I am confident that we have God’s word for it that this work can be done, and that we are to set about it without delay; and having this foundation I care for little else.But we have more if we require it.

2.We have God’s providence.His providence that has pushed the column of progress forward from the moment the Life came forth from the tomb in the garden, and began to be preached to the nations, until now its head occupies the slopes of the mountains that overhang that distant continent, and looks upon it inevitably as its next field of conquest.That providence that has pushed this advance forward upon two parallel lines, that of spiritual and of political liberty, and has made them converge and come together for the first time in history upon this broad domain; that has brought along in the slow conflict and march, institutions and rights, the spoil of nineteen centuries of conflict, and planted them upon this continent, and opened the door of invitation to the East through a sea-coast line of twelve thousand miles, and another to the far West of four thousand.These providences of God, making our duty clear, are endorsed by those others that have broken up the seclusive habits of that people, and have turned the thoughts of her educated men, and the hopes of her commerce, and the needs of her industrious poor, toward our shores.

This writing of God’s providence seen in the majestic progress of events from the East and West meeting here, seen in the configuration of the continent, seen in the harsh language of war breaking open closed doors, and in the voice of peace, endorses that other word which God has given us, and proves that our interpretation was correct, and that we have an especial duty to this people, both at home and abroad.

3.Another ground for encouragement is the character of the Chinese that are now in California.They have the mind and disposition of the mother country; nothing less, not much more.And what kind is that?We answer, it is that which created and still keeps the most ancient literature in existence.It is that which worked out for itself most of the inventions that made the fifteenth century remarkable in Europe, but more than a thousand years before.It is a mind and spirit that has obeyed, and does now obey, the fifth commandment more thoroughly than any nation upon the earth; that educates formally but more widely than any other people.It has had the tenacity and recuperative power to hold on to its ancient seats while Babylon was rising and falling; while Greece was coming to the zenith and sinking behind the Western horizon; while Rome was growing and dying; while mediæval Europe was going through its changes, and modern nations were being born and attaining their growth.All this time it has held on.What think you of the natural capacity of a soil that has produced such results, that has such staying power?It has lain long fallow, but let the process of breaking up their exclusiveness go forward; let the Gospel, not as a destructive force, illustrated by brick-bats and cannon-balls, but as a quickening power made beautiful to their eyes by the kindness and sympathy of those who profess its truths, be brought to bear upon them like the sun-light; and what harvests of righteousness shall not that great field bear for enriching the Redeemer’s kingdom!

The soil here or at home has not lost its native force nor its receptive power.Yung Wing, picked up by a missionary in the streets of Canton, converted by the faithfulness of one of the mothers of New England, sent to Yale College, where he stood among the first in his class, especially in English composition, returning to his own land to reach one of the highest places in the government, and now leading one of the greatest educational enterprises in the world, and Jee Gam as a disciple and a preacher, are but illustrations of what this soil, found among the common ranks of the Chinese, is capable of producing.

The twelve thousand dollars saved by the Chinese of California out of their hard-earned wages, and sent to the sufferers from the yellow fever in the South, proves that the common sentiments of our humanity are still surpassingly strong in them.The numbers and faithfulness of those who have joined the churches prove that they are susceptible to the influences of the Gospel, while the very tenacity with which they cling to their old faith but proves the toughness of the fibre that may some day be employed to conserve the interests of the Redeemer’s Kingdom.

4.Again, we may gather courage from the experience we have already had in conquering difficulties.If this was the first difficult matter the American Christian people had ever faced, we might expect them to be puzzled by its intricacy or appalled by its magnitude; but it is not, for from the moment our fathers planted their feet upon these shores, we as a people have had to face obstacles and to overcome them. A color-line, black as night, lay in the way of citizenship, education, and Christian labor, but we have crossed it, and we can cross the yellow line as well.

5. Again we may take courage from the very strait and necessity to which we are brought. When God brings His people down to the sea, and all ways are shut up, and still His voice and command are to go forward, we know that the waters of the sea will be divided, and we shall go over dry-shod and singing songs of victory beyond. We cannot shut out the one hundred thousand Chinamen now here, nor prevent others coming. We cannot go back to the old Chinese policy of exclusiveness, neither can we permit them to remain as a foreign element, unsubdued by our institutions or our religion. Only one thing remains, and that is to subdue them by the power of the living Saviour brought to them by patient, loving, faithful Christian hearts and bands. Brethren all, shall this be done?

6.And last of all, I mention the moving forward of Christian thought and Christian feeling in this direction.

When the plan was devised to exclude the Chinese, and the President vetoed the bill, the Christian public upon the Atlantic coast waked up to the importance of the matter.They opposed his action, they began to look at this immigration in its true light, to see in it a grand opportunity, and to lay their plans to avail themselves of its advantages for the cause of Christ.The greatness of the work is touching the imagination; its difficulty is awaking a spirit of heroism, and it is believed by many that we stand upon the threshold of one of the grandest missionary movements, one of the grandest crusades that the world has ever seen.Asia, that once responded to the call from the West, “Come over and help us,” is now herself uttering the cry, and the Christian world will not long be insensible to her voice.

In view of the importance of this work in California among the Chinese, involving the interests of that great nation beyond the Pacific, involving the good name of Church and Redeemer, involving as we believe the perpetuity of our institutions: in view of the encouragements afforded in God’s word, endorsed by His providences, by the excellent elements found in the Chinese character, and by the trophies already gathered; in view of the very necessity that is laid upon us, and the quickened attention of the churches toward that people, what is your answer, Christian brethren, to the practical questions: “Can the Chinese of California be conquered for Christ?Can the waters of that wide-spreading river flow to them here, and beyond to the continent of Asia, and shall they do it?Can the work be done?Will you do it?”These are the questions for this time, made solemn as the closing hour of your deliberations, councilings, and prayers.

I look along the ages, and all is changed.We no longer sit here in the darkness, the dust, and the noise of the conflict, but stand upon the Heavenly heights above.The world, in alternate shade and sunshine, rolls at our feet, and its song, the song of salvation, pulses up to our listening ears.Both the question that is here asked, “Will you do it?”and the answer, which I see in your looks you are giving, “By God’s grace we will!”are mingled with the sounds of the far past, and in their place rises the word, half song, half benediction, “Glory to God!we have done it.”To those high seats we are moving; for that good word we are working and waiting.

Constitution of the American Missionary Association.

INCORPORATED JANUARY 30, 1849.

Art.I. This Society shall be called “The American Missionary Association.”

Art.II. The object of this Association shall be to conduct Christian missionary and educational operations, and diffuse a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures in our own and other countries which are destitute of them, or which present open and urgent fields of effort.

Art.III. Any person of evangelical sentiments,[A] who professes faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is not a slaveholder, or in the practice of other immoralities, and who contributes to the funds, may become a member of the Society; and by the payment of thirty dollars, a life member; provided that children and others who have not professed their faith may be constituted life members without the privilege of voting.

Art.IV. This Society shall meet annually, in the month of September, October or November, for the election of officers and the transaction of other business, at such time and place as shall be designated by the Executive Committee.

Art.V. The annual meeting shall be constituted of the regular officers and members of the Society at the time of such meeting, and of delegates from churches, local missionary societies, and other co-operating bodies, each body being entitled to one representative.

Art.VI. The officers of the Society shall be a President, Vice-Presidents, a Recording Secretary, Corresponding Secretaries, Treasurer, two Auditors, and an Executive Committee of not less than twelve, of which the Corresponding Secretaries shall be advisory, and the Treasurer ex-officio, members.

Art.VII. To the Executive Committee shall belong the collecting and disbursing of funds; the appointing, counselling, sustaining and dismissing (for just and sufficient reasons) missionaries and agents; the selection of missionary fields; and, in general, the transaction of all such business as usually appertains to the executive committees of missionary and other benevolent societies; the Committee to exercise no ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the missionaries; and its doings to be subject always to the revision of the annual meeting, which shall, by a reference mutually chosen, always entertain the complaints of any aggrieved agent or missionary; and the decision of such reference shall be final.

The Executive Committee shall have authority to fill all vacancies occurring among the officers between the regular annual meetings; to apply, if they see fit, to any State Legislature for acts of incorporation; to fix the compensation, where any is given, of all officers, agents, missionaries, or others in the employment of the Society; to make provision, if any, for disabled missionaries, and for the widows and children of such as are deceased; and to call, in all parts of the country, at their discretion, special and general conventions of the friends of missions, with a view to the diffusion of the missionary spirit, and the general and vigorous promotion of the missionary work.

Five members of the Committee shall constitute a quorum for transacting business.

Art.VIII. This society, in collecting funds, in appointing officers, agents and missionaries, and in selecting fields of labor, and conducting the missionary work, will endeavor particularly to discountenance slavery, by refusing to receive the known fruits of unrequited labor, or to welcome to its employment those who hold their fellow-beings as slaves.

Art.IX. Missionary bodies, churches or individuals agreeing to the principles of this Society, and wishing to appoint and sustain missionaries of their own, shall be entitled to do so through the agency of the Executive Committee, on terms mutually agreed upon.

Art.X. No amendment shall be made to this Constitution without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present at a regular annual meeting; nor unless the proposed amendment has been submitted to a previous meeting, or to the Executive Committee in season to be published by them (as it shall be their duty to do, if so submitted) in the regular official notifications of the meeting.

FOOTNOTE:

The American Missionary Association.

AIM AND WORK.

To preach the Gospel to the poor. It originated in a sympathy with the almost friendless slaves. Since Emancipation it has devoted its main efforts to preparing the Freedmen for their duties as citizens and Christians in America and as missionaries in Africa. As closely related to this, it seeks to benefit the caste-persecuted Chinese in America, and to co-operate with the Government in its humane and Christian policy towards the Indians. It has also a mission in Africa

STATISTICS.

Churches: In the South—in Va. , 1; N. C. , 6; S. C. , 2; Ga. , 13; Ky. , 6; Tenn. , 4; Ala. , 14; La. , 17; Miss. , 4; Texas, 6. Africa, 2. Among the Indians, 1.Total 76.

Institutions Founded, Fostered or Sustained in the South.—Chartered: Hampton, Va. ; Berea, Ky. ; Talladega, Ala. , Atlanta, Ga. ; Nashville, Tenn. ; Tougaloo, Miss. , New Orleans, La. ; and Austin, Texas, 8. Graded or Normal Schools: at Wilmington, Raleigh, N. C. ; Charleston, Greenwood, S. C. ; Savannah, Macon, Atlanta, Ga. ; Montgomery, Mobile, Athens, Selma, Ala. ; Memphis, Tenn. , 12. Other Schools, 24.Total 44.

Teachers, Missionaries and Assistants.—Among the Freedmen, 284; among the Chinese, 22; among the Indians, 11; in Africa, 13. Total, 330. Students—In Theology, 102; Law, 23; in College Course, 75; in other studies, 7,852. Total, 8,052. Scholars taught by former pupils of our schools, estimated at 150,000. Indians under the care of the Association, 13,000.

WANTS.

1. A steady INCREASE of regular income to keep pace with the growing work. This increase can only be reached by regular and larger contributions from the churches—the feeble as well as the strong.

2. Additional Buildings for our higher educational institutions, to accommodate the increasing numbers of students; Meeting Houses for the new churches we are organizing; More Ministers, cultured and pious, for these churches.

3. Help for Young Men, to be educated as ministers here and missionaries to Africa—a pressing want.

Before sending boxes, always correspond with the nearest A.M.A.office, as below:

New York      H.      W.      Hubbard, Esq.      , 56 Reade Street.
Boston        Rev.        C.        L.        Woodworth, Room 21 Congregational House.
Chicago      Rev.      Jas.      Powell, 112 West Washington Street.

MAGAZINE.

This Magazine will be sent, gratuitously, if desired, to the Missionaries of the Association; to Life Members; to all clergymen who take up collections for the Association; to Superintendents of Sabbath Schools; to College Libraries; to Theological Seminaries; to Societies of Inquiry on Missions; and to every donor who does not prefer to take it as a subscriber, and contributes in a year not less than five dollars.

Those who wish to remember the American Missionary Association in their last Will and Testament, are earnestly requested to use the following

FORM OF A BEQUEST.

“I bequeath to my executor (or executors) the sum of —— dollars in trust, to pay the same in —— days after my decease to the person who, when the same is payable, shall act as Treasurer of the ‘American Missionary Association’ of New York City, to be applied, under the direction of the Executive Committee of the Association, to its charitable uses and purposes.”

The will should be attested by three witnesses [in some States three are required—in other States only two], who should write against their names, their places of residence [if in cities, their street and number].The following form of attestation will answer for every State in the Union: “Signed, sealed, published and declared by the said [A.B.]as his last Will and Testament, in presence of us, who, at the request of the said A.B., and in his presence, and in the presence of each other, have hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.”In some States it is required that the Will should be made at least two months before the death of the testator.

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Travelers’ Credits issued either against cash deposited or satisfactory guarantee of repayment: In Dollars for use in the United States and adjacent countries; or in Pounds Sterling for use in any part of the World. Applications for credits may be addressed as above direct, or through any first-class Bank or Banker.

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THE THIRTY-FOURTH VOLUME

OF THE

AMERICAN MISSIONARY,

1880.

We have been gratified with the constant tokens of the increasing appreciation of the Missionary during the past year, and purpose to spare no effort to make its pages of still greater value to those interested in the work which it records.

A little effort on the part of our friends, when making their own remittances, to induce their neighbors to unite in forming Clubs, will easily double our list, and thus widen the influence of our Magazine, and aid in the enlargement of our work.

Under the editorial supervision of Rev. C.C.Painter, aided by the steady contributions of our intelligent Missionaries and teachers in all parts of the field, and with occasional communications from careful observers and thinkers elsewhere, the American Missionary furnishes a vivid and reliable picture of the work going forward among the Indians, the Chinamen on the Pacific Coast, and the Freedmen as citizens in the South and as Missionaries in Africa.

It will be the vehicle of important views on all matters affecting the races among which it labors, and will give a monthly summary of current events relating to their welfare and progress.

Patriots and Christians interested in the education and Christianizing of these despised races are asked to read it, and assist in its circulation.

The Magazine will be sent gratuitously, if preferred, to the persons indicated on page 384.

Donations and subscriptions should be sent to

H.W.HUBBARD, Treasurer,

56 Reade Street, New York.

TO ADVERTISERS.

Special attention is invited to the advertising department of the American MissionaryAmong its regular readers are thousands of Ministers of the Gospel, Presidents, Professors and Teachers in Colleges, Theological Seminaries and Schools; it is, therefore, a specially valuable medium for advertising Books, Periodicals, Newspapers, Maps, Charts, Institutions of Learning, Church Furniture, Bells, Household Goods, &c.

Advertisers are requested to note the moderate price charged for space in its columns, considering the extent and character of its circulation.

Advertisements must be received by the TENTH of the month, in order to secure insertion in the following number. All communications in relation to advertising should be addressed to

THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY ADVERTISING DEPARTMENT,

56 Reade Street, New York.

Our friends who are interested in the Advertising Department of the “American Missionary” can aid us in this respect by mentioning, when ordering goods, that they saw them advertised in our Magazine.