The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 08, August, 1879Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 33, No. 08, August, 1879
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
There is something immensely stimulating in the thought of
breaking forth after a lost race. All we need is an infusion of
the enterprise which guided the Pilgrims to Plymouth Rock. A new
continent for Christ is what we need to take up as our watch-word,
and pass along the lines till our membership is fired with a
holy zeal to win its 200,000,000 unto the Lamb that was slain.
And if we were intent on this, how easy it would be to connect
the work _here_ with the work _there_. If, when the door opened
into the South, we had gone in with our plans to save the African
race, we could hardly have done differently from what we have.
We have planted our schools and our churches in the very centres
of population and of influence. We have a large force of young
men and women in our schools, and our churches are constituted
almost wholly of young Christian scholars. How easy it would be
to turn the whole tide of their study and thought and influence
towards Africa! There is in the African mind of the South now a
strong drawing toward the land of their fathers. The schemes of
colonization afloat all through the South show it. The hundreds
of young men and young women banded together in our schools and
churches to go to Africa as teachers or as preachers, if the way
shall open, show it. They only need the guiding intelligence to
undertake to plant on Africa’s shores another Plymouth Colony and
Massachusetts Bay.
And this opportunity comes to the Congregational church and finds
it well prepared to enter on the training of Christian scholars
and preachers for this work. Our churches on the ground are few in
number, but filled with young, fresh, intelligent, pure material,
and co-operate with our schools to bring forward the teachers and
leaders of the African race. Is it all chance that puts us in this
position and gives us this advantage in laying the foundations of
education and religion for another race and another continent?
God’s plan may include _black_ as well as _white_ pilgrims, and
it may be ours to impart the pilgrim spirit and prepare the men
who shall make a new Africa, as our fathers made a new America.
This is possible to us as a church, and we ought to work towards
it with unflagging zeal. We can only lose our advantage by our own
neglect and lack of enterprise. We are in the front of workers for
Africa. Eight or ten of our young Christian scholars are already
on African soil. They send back a call for reinforcements, and the
reinforcements will be ready as soon as our churches furnish the
equipments and give them marching orders. The work may be long and
rough; our fathers found it so here. Congregationalism is used to
that. Indeed, she does best when on the strain. She is grand when
she leads the forlorn hope. Easy, comfortable, self-pleasing life
is not the atmosphere in which she grows tough, sturdy, courageous
and aggressive. Show her something to do for Christ, something
calling for sacrifice, some mighty battle to be fought for her
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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