The American Missionary — Volume 34, No. 06, June, 1880Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 34, No. 06, June, 1880
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
One Saturday night we held a neighborhood meeting in the house
of a well-to-do colored family. The strains of song floated out
from door and windows, and the sound fell upon the ears of a “poor
white” woman of the lowest class, who was living illegally with
a deaf colored man. Her heart was stirred. She asked permission
to attend the next prayer-meeting, held at the same house on the
following Saturday. There she rose, and, with tearful voice,
confessed Christ, in the midst of her dusky audience. It seems
to be a genuine conversion. She brought in one night three other
degraded white women, one of whom was also living illicitly with
a colored man, another, who had not attended church for fourteen
years, and the third, who had never before in her life entered the
doors of a church! And now comes the question, like that of the
famous novel, “What will He do with it?” This poor, erring woman
is in frail health and hardly able to earn her living. She lives
with a colored man whom, she says, she is willing to marry. She
wants to marry him and join our church. But here the civil law
steps in and says, “Thou shalt not.” It is a crime in the eyes of
this commonwealth for white and colored persons to inter-marry,
and whoever celebrates such a marriage lays himself liable to a
thousand dollars fine. Of course, we cannot admit her to the church
while living in her present relations. She cannot marry, according
to the law; she has no friends, and is not able to support herself
if she should leave him. Even now she is so poor that she has to
borrow shoes and other clothing in order to attend church. The
white churches here have no room for such persons. She is in a more
pitiable condition than even the lowest of the negroes. Such are
some of the problems that beset us. Another of these white women is
the prodigal daughter of a good family, and we are endeavoring to
persuade her to return to her friends.
Our revival has strengthened the church, and has caused us all to
“thank God and take courage.” Brother Rogers returned to his home
with the benedictions of a multitude. We trust the work has not yet
ceased.
* * * * *
ALABAMA.
Missionary needed.
REV. C. E. CURTIS, SELMA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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