Various - The American Missionary. Volume 44, No. 01, January, 1890

The New Year opens upon this Association auspiciously. The setting sun of our old year went down in a bright sky. Revivals of religion and an increased membership was the joyful record of our churches; by the generous aid of the Daniel Hand Fund, our schools showed a greatly enlarged attendance, and the faithful work of the teachers brought forth most satisfactory results; the threatened debt that darkened several months of the year was happily averted by good showing on the right side of the ledger.

It is from this bright setting sun of the last year that we turn with faith and hope to the opening of the new year. We believe, the work is the Lord's and that he will provide. But our faith alone will not save us. It is our duty to inform and arouse our constituents as to the needs and urgency of our work. We will specify in a few particulars:

1. As to funds. Our last year's favorable showing was due in large part to legacies. These are variable, and we must rely on the gifts of living donors . Unless, therefore, the churches and individuals make larger contributions than last year, we have no assurance of an escape from debt, even if the work be maintained merely as at present. We wish most earnestly to press this fact upon the friends of the Association.

2. But this is not all. Growth is imperative. The people at the North are alarmed by the disturbed condition of the South, and are awakening afresh, as they were at the close of the war, to a sense of responsibility to the colored people. The aroused feeling at that time took a practical turn, and money, men and women were sent without stint to enlighten and elevate. Shall it be so now, or will mere sympathy or useless regret suffice? No! Something, the right thing , can be done. Fair-minded men, both North and South, realize that all schemes involving fraud, violence, disfranchisement or deportation, are impracticable, but all are agreed as to the value of Christian enlightenment, enabling the Negro to earn property and to become an intelligent and virtuous citizen. This is the line on which the Association has perseveringly toiled since it opened its first school at Fortress Monroe in 1861, and it is not too much to say that nothing more effective has been done in all these years. Can anything of a better sort be done in the future? Amid all the jarring discords at the South, the people there, both white and black, welcome the efforts of the Association. They feel that we are not disturbers, that we have a single honest aim, and are working at the only true solution of the great problem. We ask the people of the North, therefore, to come to the rescue once more by practical, self-denying liberality.

3. but this is not all. a work so vital to the interests of the nation and of the cause of christ needs to be uplifted by the prayers of god's people. deliverance cannot come from political parties, governmental authority or theories of industrial reform. the power of god must be in it. we therefore respectfully but earnestly ask our brethren in the ministry to remember this work in their prayers in the great congregation, and we ask our fellow christians to remember it in the prayer-meeting, at the family altar and in the closet.

"Now, concerning the collection." These are not the words of a begging agent, but of Paul the Apostle, and they come from his pen just after he had closed that wonderful fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians on the glorious resurrection and the victory over death and the grave. These words are fit, therefore, in any assembly and at the close of any discourse however exalted. Brethren remember the "collection."

The Corinthian church seems, like some churches in recent times, to have been remiss in sending on the "collections," and hence we find Paul, a year later, to be "After Money Again." He writes so nobly, so kindly, that we are tempted to quote a few sentences:

"For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich. And herein I give my advice: for this is expedient for you who have begun before not only to do but also to be forward a year ago. Now therefore perform the doing of it. As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that gathered little had no lack."

The National Council has appointed Committees to take into consideration the consolidation of the missionary magazines and the re-adjustment of the work of the several Congregational missionary societies. We are happy to furnish these committees with all the facts in our possession on these subjects, and this Association will, in accordance with its fundamental theory, cheerfully acquiesce in what shall be found to be the deliberate and ultimate decision of the churches. In the meantime, it may not be out of place for us to say that missionary periodicals and missionary societies are growths and not manufactured articles, and that plans for modification should be very carefully considered. We venture, therefore, to suggest that counsel be taken of the Town Clerk of Ephesus, "to do nothing rashly."

The shadow is still broad and dense, well nigh covering the continent. The heroic Stanley has found that shadow as dark as when he first traveled beneath it. The malarial climate and the bitter hostility of the natives are there yet. The accursed slave trade is as extensive as ever, embittering the lives of its victims, instigating wars among the tribes and obstructing agriculture, commerce and civilization. The failures to suppress it are discouraging. Sir Samuel Baker's well-equipped military force, Col. Gordon's intrepid courage, and Emin Pacha's brave endurance have all succumbed before it. Its flow, pushed back for a time, now returns with its old-time flood. Then, too, the Mahdi uprising, seemingly suppressed, still lives and is likely to hold the Soudan if not to harass Egypt. When Emin Pacha, under the protection of the heroic Stanley, abandoned his little sovereignty, it was a farewell, humanly speaking, to a speedy establishment of missions in that territory.

But there is a bright lining around all this darkness. For one thing the eyes of the civilized world are turned toward Africa with increasing intensity. The rainbow fringe of missions around the coasts is still sustained by the gifts and prayers of Christians, and by the blessing of God. The multiplied efforts of the European States to colonize the dark continent are facts full of encouragement. The motive may be selfish; the method sometimes unwise and cruel, and the conflict of contending interests may be hindrances, but the results will be good. All these movements aim at commerce, and commerce can only flourish on the ruins of the slave-trade, and among peaceful tribes with growing industries, intelligence and civilization. The Congo Free State, with its railroad in construction, its steamboats on the rivers and its civilized settlements, is a bright omen of the future.

Surely God's people should pray for Africa, moved by pity and by hope. Christians in America can do more than pray—they can help to answer their own prayers. They can raise up the sons and daughters of Africa, trained in our schools, to go forth as missionaries and colonists to the land of their fathers. The experiment has been tried with success. Missionaries of African descent can endure the climate better, and can more readily reach the people than those of the white race. There is a call in these facts for the means to give special instruction in Biblical truth to those who can thus be prepared for this great mission work.