What Has Been Done by C. P. Bollman

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 26, 1907

What Has Been Done

By C. P. Bollman

It is only natural that those who contribute to support any branch of the cause should desire to know what is being accomplished in that particular part of the work. We will therefore make a brief statement in regard to the principal schools of the Southern Missionary Society.

Vicksburg has quite a large church building, a two-story mission house, and a small rear cottage now used for laundry and bath-room. The city has built up around this property until it would sell for much more than it cost. Though carried on the inventory of the Southern Missionary Society at five thousand dollars, it is estimated by disinterested persons to be worth twice that. It will probably be sold, and the work moved to one of the suburbs, where buildings can be provided at much less cost, and the surplus used to establish small schools in several places.

The Southern Missionary Society also has a neat school and church building at Columbus.

The old portable tabernacle that has done service so long at Yazoo is being replaced by a more substantial building, the needed funds being supplied in part by colored Sabbath-keepers who have been raised up there.

A strong work has been built up in Natchez, within the past year and a half. A school and church building will be erected there in the near future, and this bids fair to become the center of the work for the colored people in Mississippi. The building to be erected will cost about one thousand dollars.

The Southern Missionary Society also owns a neat school and church building at Jackson, Miss., the capital of the State. This property is well located, and is now worth much more than it cost, about nine hundred dollars.

About a year ago, the Society erected a building in Greenville, Miss., with a school and meeting-room, and also living-rooms.

Edgefield Junction has a school and church building.

In Nashville there is a neat church building with a very comfortable school-room in the basement. The property is valued at fifteen hundred dollars.

The other places mentioned are as yet without buildings owned by our people, though the prospects for building at several of them are encouraging.

The buildings erected at these places are modest and inexpensive, though we are trying to have them witness for the truth.

This branch of the cause is not in debt, and has become self-supporting in a number of places, as appears from the list. Every dollar is made to go just as far as possible. Nearly all the schools collect some tuition from the pupils who are able to pay, and this helps just that much in establishing and maintaining schools in other places.

The colored believers are for the most part faithful in paying tithe, and thus help the general work in the conferences where they are located. They are loyal to the truth and to the organized work, and appreciate what is being done to help them. As a consequence, the progress of the cause is not dependent entirely upon the work of paid laborers, but is carried forward to quite an extent by missionary effort on the part of the rank and file of the believers. There is no part of the work in this country that has been done more economically, or has more to show for money expended, than has this branch of the cause.

We believe that now is the opportune time to give a new impetus to this department of the cause in the South. The hearts of many are being turned this way, and our colored brethren themselves are of good courage and alive in the work. Let us take hold and help them by a good, liberal donation to this particular branch of the cause.

C. P. BOLLMAN, Sec. S. M. S.