The American Missionary — Volume 34, No. 06, June, 1880 — John Shaqi
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
instructed conscience, and the State is not secure until he does.
—[DR. NOBLE _in Advance_.
SIX PREACHERS, ALL OF THEM CALLED.
[The following letter reveals the condition of _one_ out of many
neighborhoods scattered all over the South, densely populated
with negroes, neglected by the whites, excepting as the agent or
overseer of the plantation looks after the owner’s interests as
connected with the labor of the people. No schools, no churches,
excepting such as are ministered to by preachers as ignorant and,
in many cases, as licentious as the people themselves. Just think
of it! The visit of this Sunday-school agent the first visit of
a white Christian to the hundred families; their religious and
other culture such as those six preachers could give! And this
not in Central Africa, but in the very heart of the southwest
portion of our own land! These people citizens of our republic, and
voters!—ED. MISS.]
A missionary of the American Sunday-School Union in the Southwest
writes:
“I recently organized a Sunday-school for the colored people at
Homan Station, on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern R. R.,
in Miller County, between Texarkana and the Red River, where is
a large cotton plantation, and two others are near, having in
all more than one hundred families. Among them is one Baptist
church, and six preachers, every one ‘called!’ Only two of them
can read, and the pastor or ‘head-preacher’ is blind; and so are
all, in spiritual things, preachers and people. After delivering
an address, I found that only seven in the audience could read.
In all, fifty adults and children joined the Sunday-school and
promised to learn to read. I furnished them with primers, Bibles,
Testaments, etc., which seemed to please the plantation agent or
overseer as well as the people.
“After the school was organized, the blind preacher gave a sermon
from Rev. xxii. 1, 2, another preacher doing the reading. I shall
not attempt to characterize the sermon, singing and responses. When
will white Christians, who know the way of life, surrender their
prejudices and teach these poor, benighted people the truths of the
Gospel? My visit was the first made by a white Christian worker to
this place, and will be remembered.”
* * * * *
NEW INDUSTRIES AND SIGNIFICANT FEATURES OF A NEW LIFE IN THE SOUTH.
It is a good indication of the movement of the South to manufacture
its own staples, that since 1866 it has set in motion 600,000
spindles, of which Georgia has 213,157, a third of them being in
Columbus, and that the cotton mills at Augusta, Ga., alone turned
out $4,000,000 worth of manufactured products last year, paid ten
to twelve per cent. dividends, and carried a handsome surplus to
the sinking-fund accounts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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