Work for the Colored People in Newbern, N. C.
By SYDNEY SCOTT
I WENT to North Carolina by recommendation of the Southeastern Union Conference in March, 1911. Our North Carolina brethren asked that Newbern have the privilege of the first tent effort of the season. We began a series of tent meetings June 4, and continued up to the first of October. We were provided with a small field tent, thirty by fifty feet, seating about 375 persons. This canvas tabernacle soon proved inadequate to accommodate the attendance. The North Carolina Conference purchased a new khaki duck tent large enough to provide seating capacity for about a thousand persons. This brown cloth pavilion is the finest ever purchased for the colored work in the South to my knowledge. The effort has proved very fruitful in many respects. Our congregation ranged from 450 to 700 every night during the week, and on Sunday night the number went to a thousand or more. The average attendance during the entire effort was 439; on Sunday nights the average was 813, the largest congregation numbering 1,200. The donations amounted to $250. The average nightly donation was $3.50; the smallest, $1.15; the largest, $11.11. All running expenses were covered, and quite a neat sum was turned into the mission treasury of the conference. The number accepting the truth, and walking in it, is 80; of this number 75 have united with the church. Our church-membership before the effort was 8; now it is 83. The Sabbath-school membership was 12; now it is 105. November 6, 34 were baptized in the bay, which is in the prominent section of the city. Two thousand persons witnessed the rite, among whom were many wealthy society people. While Brother Page Shepard, my assistant, has returned to Newbern to follow up the work while I am in Ellensburg, Wash., to recuperate my strength. I solicit the prayers of all that the truth may prosper in Newbern. SYDNEY SCOTT.