THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE SOUTHERN FIELD.
By Lewis C. Sheafe
The following facts have been gathered from reports of the commission, and the Spirit of Missions, a monthly magazine published by the church. The work among the negroes is carried on thru a body known as the Colored Commission, which was organized at Chicago in October, 1886. It was then decided to appropriate for this board $12,100 per annum to be used for the negroes; in 1895 the general convention of the church appropriated for this work $70,000 per annum. Prior to 1886 there was no separate record kept of work among the negroes, except in two or three instances.
Cabin Life.
In 1866, just after the close of the war, $24,728 was expended in this work, and the following year $28,209; but the fund finally dwindled down to $8,000 or $9,000 per annum. Yet between the dates 1866 and 1895 the church expended for the work among the negroes, $793,008. There are now 116 stations, ministered to by 65 negro clergymen, with more than 60 white clergymen engaged in the work, and there are 7,500 communicants among the negroes. The church and school buildings number 146; value of church property, $460,000.
The educational institutions which are under the commission have done excellent work. Kings Hall, at Washington, D. C., is a general theological seminary, has a faculty of five; students, nine. Bishop Payne Divinity School, at Petersburg, Va., is also a theological institution; faculty, three; students, ten. Hoffman Hall, Nashville, Tenn., is a school for academic training, with a faculty of three. St. Augustine School, at Raleigh, N. C., was incorporated in 1867. It has done and is now doing excellent work in training the negro children, intellectually, morally, and industrially. Fifteen teachers are here employed. During the past year there were 125 boarders in the school and 52 day-scholars. The course includes not only a good, thoro preparatory and normal education, but a most excellent training for girls in domestic art, sewing, cooking, housekeeping, etc. St. Agnes Hospital is here, and has its training-school for nurses; this opens a large field of usefulness for the women. The male students receive instruction in bricklaying, and this school also prepares men to enter Kings Hall. Then, at Lawrenceville, Va., is Saint Paul's Normal and Industrial School, which is doing practically the same work as the St. Augustine School. During the year just closed this school has received 300 students, coming from 17 States in the Union. Here is provided thoro training for girls in all branches of their calling. For the boys, there are carpenter, blacksmith, and wheelwright shops, a grist-mill, sash-and-blind factory, a printing office, and instruction is given in bricklaying and cabinet-making. Like all the other industries, the agricultural department, besides giving practical training in farming and horticulture, contributes largely to the support of the institution.
By the generosity of Mrs. Wm. F. Cochran, of New York, there has been built and finished a model church for the negroes at Fayetteville, N. C., called St. Joseph's. This is a church, school, and rectory, combined.
There is a feeling that is shared by many of the communicants of this church that there is an unfulfilled duty to the negroes of the United States, and that the amount now granted the Colored Commission to be used in their work among the negroes, is not commensurate with the means of this church. The cause is needy, and beyond question is worthy; for it is the cause of Christ Himself. There is also a very reasonable guarantee of success, as the results compare favorably with those of similar work done among the whites.
Kitchen garden, Savannah, Ga.
Then there is the work among this race that comes under the Woman's Auxiliary. Can any good work go on anywhere without one or more women being in it? In Baltimore, Md., is St. Mary's Home for Boys, which is well filled and cared for; and in connection with St. Stephen's Church in Savannah, Ga., is a parochial school. The little ones get their start here in the kindergarten, which was opened December, 1892, being the first one for negroes opened in the State. There are ninety children in attendance.
There have been wonderful transformations wrought among these little ones in neatness and cleanliness. The dispositions of many have undergone changes for the better, and the parents and homes feel the effect. The children are quick to take their parents to task for anything that is done in the home that is not in harmony with the teaching of the kindergarten.
After we have faithfully sowed the seed in well-prepared ground, let us wait for the early and the latter rain. This church believes that years must pass before the seed now sown in their schools can bear fruit; so they plan and work accordingly. They mean to carry in all their schools the industrial training for both sexes, to train the hand as well as the head and heart—for the boys a knowledge of tools as a means of self-support and advancement in life; for the girls, sewing and household industry. It is a fact that the church will be mainly fed through the children; for the adult population is largely alien to the church and its teachings. The workers believe in the Tuskogee idea, that all education enlarges a man's wants. A mere literary training enlarges his wants without increasing his ability, outside of professional life, to meet them. The common field hand goes to Tuskogee, and leaves there a mechanic and a scholar; and the girls go away skilled in their various callings, demanding and easily securing better compensation for their labor. From these larger wants and larger resources there soon comes the larger man and the better citizen.
An industrial training has a very elevating moral effect. No matter how bad the boy is,13if you get him thoroly interested in a machine-shop, in butter-making, or in designing and house-building, you have conquered him. Then there follow love of labor, manly independence, a race made useful as producers and manufacturers.
There is presented an opportunity to the church of lasting usefulness in the fact that seventy-five per cent. of the negroes of the South are renters of land under the system of mortgaging crops. This is really a system of slavery; for most of them have very little idea of the cost of the material they buy at the stores. The natural result is they pay very high prices and a high rate of interest. What they especially need is an opportunity to get their heads above water, so that they will have a living chance to own their places. This result will be hastened by sending among them men of their own race who can and will teach them not only the Sabbath, but, what is quite as important, ways of Christian living. Those who have looked into the condition and needs of the negro, feel that the welfare of the negro lies very largely in their making their homes in the country and having land of their own. So long as they continue to live on rented land, in one or two-room cabins, there is little possibility of greater progress.
Hospital Nurses, St. Agnes.
There is need of centers in the country districts from which there shall go light and help along all lines.
It has been proposed by this church to send out at an early date, as new helps among the negroes, consecrated Christian women, who shall be earnest, refined, intelligent; who know the people, and by education and long association have become acquainted with their condition. They will have no discretion in the choice of locality, but are expected to have all imaginable discretion when once located.
The outline of the plan includes two talks a week in schoolhouse, church, or hall, to any women or girls who will come. They are to follow up these talks with visits to the homes of the people, and there, by practical object-lessons, elucidate and exemplify the talks. These Bible women will give instruction in matters that are necessary to a well-regulated home. They will take up such subjects as what constitutes a home; its sanctity; mutual responsibilities, and place in the highest civilization; sanitary measures, including cleanliness, good air, sleep, health rules, and dietetics. They are also to give instruction in the proprieties of life, manners, how to make work light, evenings at home, care and government of children, dress, conduct on the street, and the language and literature of the home.
It is fully believed that if this proposed method, is extensively and thoroly applied, it will in a few years produce larger and better results than preaching and schools, because it will strengthen the weakest part of the negro's character, and thus purify the stream at the fountain-head.
There is another lesson that ought to be faithfully taught the negro, especially in places where he has long had light and help, that is, self-support. Show him that his self-respect will not permit him to continue to be an ecclesiastical pauper. Here are the reasons for this: self-support renders that particular mission or church more aggressive, intelligent, and capable; it is indicative of real appreciation for the kindly help bestowed, and commands the respect and esteem of the church at large; it increases largely the interest and money for that special branch of missionary work; it enables the church to extend the help hitherto given this mission to others, who anxiously await it; and, lastly, it is essentially right in itself. LEWIS C. SHEAFE.
A WORKER'S PRAYER.
If there be good in that I wrought,
Thy hand compelled it, Master, Thine;
Where I have failed to meet Thy thought,
I know thru Thee the blame is mine.
One instant's toil to Thee denied
Stands all eternity's offense;
Of that I did with Thee to guide,
To Thee, thru Thee, be excellence,
Who, lest all thought of Eden fade,
Bring'st Eden to the craftsman's brain,
Godlike to muse o'er his own trade,
And manlike stand with God again.
The depth and dream of my desire,
The bitter paths wherein I stray,
Thou knowest who has made the fire,
Thou knowest who has made the clay.
One stone the more swings to her place
In that dread temple of Thy worth;
It is enough that thru Thy grace
I saw naught common on Thy earth.
Take not that vision from my ken;
O, whatsoe'er may spoil or speed,
Help me to need no aid from men,
That I may help such men as need!
—Selected.
THE CONDITION OF TURKEY.
In its Asiatic possessions Turkey covers almost all the regions associated with the empires of the ancient world, and almost all the countries referred to in Bible history. It contains Asia Minor, the valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris—with the ruins of ancient Babylon and Nineveh—and the regions of Syria and Palestine. It has within its borders Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, the city of Haran, where he long dwelt, the desert of Arabia, the land of Palestine—now lying almost waste, but once so bright and fertile. This one empire, now so ignominious, so cruelly governed, so trodden down and hindered in development by injustice and oppression, so wretched to numbers of its inhabitants, covers regions of great fertility and beauty, of natural wealth unbounded, if its resources could be freely developed. It has its many desert regions, but it possesses in most parts of Asia Minor and of the valley of the Euphrates and of Palestine, soil of the utmost fertility, which would be as the garden of the world—if ruled by just and righteous rulers.
Travelers visiting these regions at present are often disappointed. It is a country depending immensely on artificial cultivation, and, therefore, utterly changed in aspect by its long desolation. Like some beautiful, neglected garden, it has become the most painful waste of all scenes. But it is a country which could be restored, and speedily restored, to its former beauty if there were security for the expenditure of capital in rebuilding the terraces on the hills, planting fruitful trees, restoring the vines, renewing its soil, and protecting it from the waste of heavy rains and tempest. The Jewish colonies established by Baron Rothschild, of Paris, in recent years, where many Jews are now cultivating the soil, have converted regions perfectly bleak and waste before, into beautiful, prolific regions abounding in fruits and vegetables and cereals of different kinds. Those who have visited the colonies have been struck with the contrast of these carefully-cultivated regions and the waste aspect of the surrounding country.
But it is not Palestine alone within the Turkish dominion that has such resources, hindered in their development by a government of robbery and violence, but great regions of Asia Minor, and the rich, far-extending valleys of the Euphrates and Tigris. These most prolific regions of vast extent are all crushed down by the weight of what might be termed a lawless government. There is not only no stimulus to industry, but there is every possible hindrance to it. Industrious prosperity is viewed askance, and those who attain to it to any visible extent are watched by the farmers of the taxes, great and small, and victimized. They are ruthlessly plundered, and if they show any dissatisfaction, are often sent, as suspects, to some wretched dungeon, to starve and possibly to die, while the fruits of their industry are being stolen. A more oppressive government than that which has so long misgoverned all these regions now called Turkey can scarcely be imagined. Under its auspices, progress and improvement are perfectly impossible.—Condensed from the Mission World (London).
Translating Christ into Daily Life
TRANSLATORS are always needed on heathen fields, but the greatest among such is he who can translate the example of Jesus Christ into the dialect of daily life, into the universal speech of pain and poverty and suffering for the sake of others.—Gordon.
OUR WORK AND WORKERS.
SEVEN members were recently added to the church at Muncie, Indiana.
PASTOR C. N. MARTIN reports fifteen conversions to the truth at Chico, Cal.
PASTOR H. F. COURTER is about to organize a church in Inyo County, Cal.
THREE members were recently added to the church at Johnstown, Penn.
THE church at Reading, Penn., was dedicated in connection with the quarterly meeting, January 5, 6.
FIFTY-THREE persons are taking the course of instruction being given by Pastors Santee and Loughborough at the Bible school in Healdsburg, Cal.
PASTOR WM. WOODFORD writes us that nine persons were baptized and a church of twenty-seven members was organized at Juniata, Alabama, on December 9.
BROTHER W. R. BURROW tells of eight who have been converted under his labors in the vicinity of Paris, Tenn. He says that the work is still going on, and that others are interested.
PASTOR J. M. FREEMAN writes from Basutoland that the Spirit of the Lord is at work upon the hearts of the poor heathen there. At a recent Sabbath meeting twenty expressed a desire to become Christians.
SISTER MARTHA L. LINDEMOOD, of Dehesa, Cal., writes us of the wonderful goodness of the Lord in miraculously healing her from disease when all hope seemed past and preserving her to assist her husband in caring for their family.
SISTER S. R. GUTHRIE is having good success in selling the SIGNS OF THE TIMES in Reno, Nevada. She has sold as high as fifty-seven copies in four hours. And when we think of the mighty truths that the SIGNS is seeking to give to the world, should not hundreds of our friends everywhere be stirred to do a like work.
BROTHER H. J. SCHNEPPER reports a good interest and some accessions to the faith in a country neighborhood near Goble, Oregon. It is a German community, and when he began work there, beer-drinking and dancing were the principal pastimes. But some are leaving off their beer, and the dance is not so popular as it was.
Helping Hand Magazine.—A special feature in the February issue of the Helping Hand magazine will be the Prisoners' Department. In addition to the usual select pabulum devoted to the welfare of prisoners, the magazine will contain an interesting report of the session devoted to a discussion on State prisons and charities, held at Oakland on January 5.
Worlds of Note
In these days the spirit of taking the law in hand and executing a culprit on the spot is gaining ground. From all parts of the country the reports keep coming to us of the men who are lynched by the mob. It is said that these things will so terrify the evil-doer that he will desist from his evil ways. But is such the case? Is it not perfectly apparent to any one that the lawlessness is on the increase? Both observation and the published statistics show that this is the case. This condition of lawlessness will increase and continue, till all the earth will be filled with violence. God has foretold it in His Word, and we see it coming. But do not let this fill you with gloominess. The Lord is soon coming, and that will put an end to it all. Get ready to meet the Saviour of the world at His coming, and all this gloom is consumed by the joy of that great hope.
The Galveston News of January 1 in presenting its annual statement of the trade and commerce of that port for 1900, gives a concise résumé of the damage done by the September storm, and an outline of what has been accomplished in the way of rehabilitation. Notwithstanding the terrible devastation of the hurricane, Galveston's exports for the months of October, November, and December show an increase over the corresponding months of last year. The property loss in the city from the storm amounted to $17,058,275; but since the storm $2,258,600 have been expended in new buildings, and the city is rapidly rising from the terrible stroke received in September.
The sultan has appointed the Moslem brigand, Hadschi Nilich, the notorious murderer of Christians, to be commander-in-chief in the northern provinces of Turkey. His first act on receiving his appointment was to purchase the arms of his old comrades at a high price, and supply them with new firearms free. Nilich then put the Greek bishop of Prisrend in irons and plundered seventeen Christian churches. The Christians in the country are fleeing in terror to the towns.
A report from Odessa, Russia, states that 120 persons have been frozen to death in Southern Russia, while the trains in which they were traveling were stalled and buried in snow. Some of the trains had been blocked for five or six days, the passengers suffering the greatest hardship on account of the cold and lack of food. An army of 18,000 troops is now at work shoveling out the buried trains and clearing the railroads.
The celebrated burning mine at Summit Hill, Pa., which has been burning for forty-two years, is now practically under control, after having consumed many acres of the finest coal in the world. Great holes have been drilled into the earth in front of the burning section, and these have been filled with non-burning coal refuse, which is expected to stop the progress of the fire.
Prof. Robert L. Garner, who has been making a study of the monkey language for several years past, is believed to have perished in the wilds of Africa. The professor claimed to have discovered a few words of the monkey language, but it is safe to say that the simian tongue will remain a sealed language for all time, along with the language of the elephant and the cony.
A missionary of the Mormon Church who has recently returned from the Hawaiian Islands, and who has spent many years among the natives, reports that the native Hawaiian race is dying out. This he attributes to a low idea of maternity, with a consequent large infant death rate, and to the fact that the natives have added to their own vices those of the whites.
Four hundred contract laborers from Porto Rico arrived in San Francisco on January 8, and took steerage passage at once for Honolulu, to work on the sugar plantations there. This company of Porto Ricans was brought in after nightfall in order to avoid the trouble experienced in getting the other band of Porto Ricans to take ship for the islands.
The Senate, on January 9, by a decisive vote, declared for the abolition of the army canteen. In this regard the bill remains as it passed the House. The Senate Committee, to which the bill had been referred, recommended that the canteen be continued in the army, but that it be allowed to sell only beer. The Senate's vote against the canteen stood 34 to 15.
The first school-teachers' union in Canada was formed in British Columbia recently, at the annual meeting of the teachers' institute of the province. The purpose of the organization was to oppose certain regulations of the educational department. It is reported that if the educational department refuses to grant their wishes, they will go on a strike.
Congress is being urged to take some action to save the lives of the starving Indians in the southern part of California. The lands of these Indians have been laid waste by drought, and the river which they formerly used to irrigate their land has been turned from its channel into irrigation ditches by white settlers farther up the stream.
Observations made at the Harvard University upon the planet Eros, indicate that this little planet is only about 20 miles in diameter, and that at times it approaches nearer to the earth than any other planet. Its orbit lies between those of Mars and Jupiter, but at times Eros comes inside the orbit of Mars.
By the Burleigh Bill, passed by the House of Representatives on January 8, the membership of the House is increased from 357, the present membership, to 386. Under this reapportionment plan, no State loses a representative, and twenty States make a gain of from one to three representatives.
The most severe storm of the winter came down upon the Middle West on January 9, extending from Texas to the Great Lakes and the Dakotas, and from the Rockies to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Railway traffic was seriously impeded, and telegraph and telephone lines were down everywhere.
The American commission which has been investigating the propagation of yellow fever in Cuba, declares that the experiments show beyond a doubt that there is no contagion from an infected person or from infected clothing, but that the mosquitoes alone are responsible for the spread of the disease.
Twenty-six Filipino leaders are to be exiled to the island of Guam, and will be detained there until peace is established. The Filipinos are still active in different parts of Luzon. On January 3 the Americans captured 9 Filipino officers and 48 privates during an attack on Old Cavite.
The Colombian rebels are again threatening Panama and Colon, and British and American war ships have been ordered to these places. There was heavy fighting around Panama on January 10 and 11, and the losses on both sides were reported to be considerable.
Alfred Mace, son of pugilist Jem Mace, is making an evangelistic tour of the world. He began services in Chicago on January 12. Mr. Mace, tho the son of a pugilist, is one of England's most eloquent ministers, and has been engaged in ministerial work for 24 years.
Several tribes of Alaska Indians who have been wrangling over their totem poles and threatening tribal war, have agreed, according to report, to put aside their differences and adopt the American flag as their united tribal emblem in place of the totem.
Five professors of the Helsingfors University, Finland, are to be removed for having criticized the Russian Government, and the governor-general of Finland has demanded more stringent censure laws to prevent all such criticisms in the future.
Fifteen hundred miners of the Fremont County coal mines, Colorado, went on a strike January 13, for the purpose of helping the miners at Erie, Colorado, and Gallup, N. M., in attaining the object for which they are striking.
A new oil region was tapped at Beaumont, Texas, on January 10. Oil was reached at a depth of about 1,000 feet, and the well is reported to be spouting to a height of 175 feet, throwing up about 12,000 barrels of oil per day.
Several cases have been reported recently in the daily press in which life has been saved by the injection into the circulatory system of pure salt water which had been raised to the temperature of the blood.
The Alaska Exploration Company is planning a system of electric railways for the Klondike country, and it is expected that a portion of the system will be in operation before the close of the coming summer.
Seven persons were crushed to death during a panic in a Jewish theater in Chicago, on January 12. A false alarm of fire had been raised, and the exits at once became jammed in the rush to escape.
Twenty persons were killed and 312 wounded in a panic during a Japanese festival in Tokyo recently.
The bubonic plague has appeared at Constantinople, and all arrivals are being medically examined.
Three German cadets who recently applied for commissions in the German Army, were blackballed because of their opposition to dueling. The minister of war canceled the vote, but the board of officers again blackballed the applicants, tho the cadets were fully qualified. The affair is to be taken to the Reichstag.
One not overly-large town in Pennsylvania, Lebanon, has not less than twenty-four religious denominations represented, ranging all the way from 3,500 in number down to one. This is one of the many evidences that our Lord's prayer for unity is not yet answered, and that Babylon is still well represented.
Cardinal Gibbons recently made a speech in Baltimore against the increasing craze for war that is spreading over the world. One statement that he made is, “It must be confessed that we are, as yet, far removed from the millennium of peace.”
A troop of 2,000 Venezuelans and revolutionary Colombians have invaded Colombia and attempted to capture a town. It is feared this may lead to trouble between these two South American States.
Wireless telegraph stations have been installed on the principal islands of the Hawaiian group, and the system will soon be ready for regular telegraph service.
A report from Honolulu states that the anti-trust law has been so vigorously enforced there that all trusts or combinations have dissolved.15
A number of expeditions are arranging to make a dash for the north pole during the present year. Among these are the Peary expedition, which is now wintering north of Greenland; the Zeigler expedition; the joint expedition of Nansen and Duke Abruzzi; the Sverdrup-Stein expedition; a Russian expedition with the ice-breaking ship Ermack; a Canadian expedition, and a German expedition. The Russian Vice-Admiral Makaroff expects to drive the ice-breaking ship thru the pack ice straight to the pole.
Of the great droves of bison (American buffalo) which swarmed over the prairies of the Western States, but little more than a memory exists at the present time. By a census of the animal made eleven years ago, it was found that there were in the whole of North America only 1,091 bison, of which 256 were in captivity in parks. A census recently completed gives the number as 1,024, including both those running wild and those in parks and zoological gardens.
According to reports from Washington, the government is much worried over the currency question in the Philippines. The plan has been proposed of placing the islands on the same financial basis as this country, and making the currency of the United States the currency of the islands; but to do this, it is said, would be to admit that the Constitution does follow the flag, and this is farther than the administration now desires to go.
A Russian sect known as the Molokanen, and numbering about 40,000 persons, is making arrangements to emigrate to Canada. The increase of land rent to support Russia's military operations is the cause of their migration.
A statistician has discovered that $15,000,000 is expended annually in the United States for incidentals in playing the game of golf. This does not include the expenditures for club-houses and grounds.
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YE DID IT UNTO ME
Unawares
YE DID IT UNTO ME
“And He said, ‘The sin is pardoned,
But the blessing is lost to thee,
For, failing to comfort the least of Mine,
You have failed to comfort Me.’”
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The U. S. Weather Bureau Again Chooses the New Century
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