Yearly Collection for the Work Among the Colored People
By George I. Butler
This annual collection, appointed by the General Conference to help the work for the colored people in the United States, occurs this year on Sabbath, October 5. By the time this notice can reach our people through the papers, it will be about one month ahead. Surely it is time that the attention of our people was drawn to it. We are well aware that the present prospects of a large collection are not very brilliant. While the large fund of $150,000 occupies the attention of the people so absorbingly, it is difficult to draw attention to other worthy enterprises. What then shall be done? Shall we let this fund devoted by the decision of the General Conference to this exceedingly needy work pass by unnoticed?—God forbid. The $150,000 fund is not devoted to the aid of the work for the colored people to any great degree. To be sure, there are two institutions assisted by it which are closely related to that work. We refer to the Huntsville school and the work in Jamaica. But the far larger portion has no relation to this needy work. This October collection is intended to be wholly devoted to the building up of this great branch of the cause, so much in need of help. This collection is not sectional in the sense that the word is usually understood. While the Southern Union Conference receives more than any other conference, it is because the larger number of colored people are in that section. The amount raised last year in this collection was very small compared with the amount that was raised the year before. To the best of the writer's knowledge, it was about one fourth of the amount that was raised the preceding year. The work of the Southern Missionary Society has been greatly crippled the past year as the result of the smallness of the collection last October. There are very few comparatively who realize the beneficent work which has been and is being done by the Southern Missionary Society. This society is now an honored department of the Southern Union Conference, just the same as the Educational, Sabbath-school, and Medical Departments. It comes under the control of the Southern Union Conference and its committee, and its general interests are and will be considered by the Southern Union Conference, and by the conference committee when in session. While its daily and monthly workings are superintended by a committee or board, of which the president of the Southern Union Conference is the chairman, yet this missionary society is simply an integral part and department of the Southern Union Conference. The society is especially interested in schools connected with the churches composed of colored members. Some of these schools were established preceding the bringing into existence of the church. It is a fact of deepest interest in connection with the rise of the Southern Missionary Society that it has been an agency which has done much to educate poor colored people, young and old, wherever its benign influence has been extended. When the “Morning Star” began its work on the Mississippi River, meetings of the colored people were held upon it, and night and day schools were conducted in its cabin. Aged persons who did not know their letters were taught to read their Bibles. This was noble missionary work. Ever since that time schools have been kept up and furnished with teachers by the aid of the Missionary Society. Many of the schools could not have existed but for the help of this society. And what is most remarkable and blessed about it is that in almost every instance where a school has thus been inaugurated, a church of believers has been the result. My brethren and sisters, lovers of the cause in this Southern field, this plan of work is the very best that can be instituted for the promulgation of this truth among that people. Our work has given them a Christian education in place of the ignorance and darkness, indolence and lack of ambition, often prevailing. Another most important feature of the work of the Southern Missionary Society is the help that it extends to the weak, struggling companies which have here and there embraced the truth. Their helplessness is sad and most heart rending in many instances. The truth reaches them either by preaching or through reading-matter. They embrace it. Their former brethren cast them off, and make it hard for them. They are without place of meeting, and have no schoolhouse. Often few in number, they are in great perplexity and distress. The Missionary Society opens correspondence with them, encourages them to hope, assists them with reading-matter, and encourages them to trust in6God. And when the society is able to do so, it helps them in building meeting-houses, the basements of which are usually used for schoolrooms. The Missionary Society is verily a cherishing mother to the poor, needy little companies of colored workers, lending a hand when no other organization is prepared and in readiness to do it. It will be seen by every thoughtful believer that the purpose of this society is a noble one. It is an absolute necessity to meet the wants of this very needy branch of the work, and very few of our people have ever realized the importance of its work. Any one who will visit the special field (the State of Mississippi, in the vicinity of Vicksburg, Natchez, etc.) where the most of its work has been carried on, will find many gratifying results. The rank and file of the colored workers in the Mississippi Conference have come, to a great extent, from those raised up by this society, and there are practically as many colored believers in the State as there are white. In the opinion of the writer, who has given a great deal of study to this question, the Southern Missionary Society, though it has been crippled for want of means, has accomplished fully as much as in any previous year. The great fund of $150,000 furnishes no means for the Southern Missionary Society and its work. But the October collection should be very helpful to it. Indeed, this collection is the main source of its income. The collection is also very helpful to the training-school and its very important interests at Huntsville, Ala. This school is now especially preparing for a far greater sphere of usefulness than it has ever occupied in the past. The establishment of a small sanitarium, with physicians capable of training nurses connected with the school, is a very hopeful feature. The new school building, just completed, is a great improvement on the old one which was burned. There are many encouraging omens of good in connection with this training-school. The more mature class of pupils, who realize their need of training, is a great encouragement. The institute held at that school during the past summer has been the most encouraging of any institute held in connection with the Southern Union Conference. Probably as many as seventy-five young men and women were in attendance for weeks, and they gave the best attention, and highly appreciated the instruction given. Altogether, the prospects of a great advance of this branch of the work never looked so hopeful to the writer as at the present time. And this branch of the work has been a theme of deep study for years past. To our brethren and sisters throughout the field we appeal for a liberal contribution to the regular collection to be taken October 5. Do not neglect this important branch of the work. Its claims upon our people are very strong. The Testimonies continually for more than twelve years have most urgently pressed upon our people the necessity of caring for this branch of the work. Do we believe this precious instruction? Then prove it, dear brethren and sisters, by a generous contribution October 5. Begin from the time you read this article, if you have not begun before, and plan for it. We know there are many throughout our country who feel an interest in this branch of the work. The small collection last year has crippled the work. A generous offering this year will gladden the hearts of the workers and encourage them, and it will greatly strengthen the weak hands. It will put new life into this work. We have been instructed that the work here in the South is liable to be hedged up with special difficulties a little later. The discerning reader can see ominous signs of trouble ahead. Now is the most favorable time that we shall ever have for accomplishing good results in this branch of the work. Work while the day lasts; the night soon cometh when no man can work. Then it will be too late. We appeal to our dear, loyal people to remember generously this most needy branch of the work, October 5. President Southern Union Conference.