ABOUT a year ago the Tennessee River Conference undertook to plan with the colored people at Nashville, Tenn., to secure a lot, and erect a school and church building. A lot, twenty-five by two hundred feet, was purchased for two hundred dollars, in East Nashville, or Edgefield as it is called, to be paid for in installments of eight dollars a month. On this lot it was planned to erect a building eighteen by thirty-six feet in size.
The colored people worked faithfully, and have kept up their monthly payments, until the lot is nearly half paid for, but they could not raise the needed funds to build.
A few weeks ago the Southern Missionary Society arranged to put up the building if the colored church people would keep up the payments on the lot until that obligation was met.
But as a school would, without doubt, be soon opened, it was decided that the lot was too narrow. Hence negotiations were at once opened, and a lot by the side of it has just been secured at the same price and on the same terms as the first. This gives a lot fifty by two hundred feet, with a good street in front and an alley in the rear.
The size of the building will be increased to twenty-two by forty-eight feet. The studding will be fourteen feet, and by finishing part of the way on the rafters, the ceiling will be fifteen feet high. The tower will be plain, but will add much to the appearance and convenience of the building. Below it will form a vestibule, or entrance hall. Above will be hung a bell which has been donated.
The lot has quite a slope from front to rear. By elevating the front about four or five feet an excellent schoolroom can be finished later underneath the church. Plans are already being laid for a good school in this building, with some industrial features connected with it.
The cost of this building, painted and seated, will be about five hundred dollars, without finishing the schoolrooms underneath. To finish for church above and school below, the cost will be from eight hundred to nine hundred dollars. If the money could be raised to finish this work without going into debt, it would grandly aid the work. We are lifting in Nashville to the best of our ability, and the merchants are showing a great interest in the effort, and are aiding liberally.
THE PROPOSED CHURCH BUILDING
The following are some of the donations already received:—
Appropriations from funds in the hands of the Southern Union Conference ............ $102 75
Southern Missionary Society ........ 100 00
Earthman Lumber Co. ........ 25 00
J. H. Fall & Co., Hardware for entire building. Estimate .. 40 00
Mrs. H. C. McDearmon ........ 25 00
J. E. White ................ 25 00
Mrs. E. G. White ............ 10 00
Under the labors of Brother Strachan an excellent school has been built up at Jackson, Miss., and an intelligent company has accepted the truth.
The time has fully come for these people to have a permanent place for their church and school work. Hence a lot was recently purchased in an excellent location, about the same size as the Nashville church lot. The price for this was also four hundred dollars. The payments were one hundred dollars down18and the balance in one and two years.
The colored people in Mississippi have taken hold of this work in earnest. The Jackson company have raised one hundred dollars, and made the first payment on the lot, and the church at Vicksburg has donated one hundred dollars toward the building.
The size of the Jackson building will be twenty-four by forty-eight, and will cost about five hundred dollars. The donations are as follows:—
Company at Jackson .......... $100 00
Church at Vicksburg .......... 100 00
Southern Missionary Society .. 100 00
Mrs. H. C. McDearmon ........ 50 00
J. E. White .................. 25 00
Mrs. E. G. White ............. 10 00
Assistance is needed for both of these enterprises. To those who have become genuinely interested in these two churches from reading of this article, we say, help us so that both of these buildings can be dedicated free from debt when completed, which we hope can be done about the beginning of the year 1904. Send all remittances directly to the Southern Missionary Society, Station K., Nashville, Tenn.
