The American missionary — volume 42, no. 9, September, 1888Various
Religion
The American missionary — volume 42, no. 9, September, 1888
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
4. Last, but not least. The battle against caste must be fought,
and the victory won, in America. As the last battle against
slavery was fought and won here for the world, so we must fight
the battle of caste here for India as well as for America. Fifty
years ago very wise and good brethren said: “You Abolitionists are
right _theoretically_, slavery is wrong and ought to be abolished
immediately; but _practically_ you are a set of visionaries.
Slavery is a local institution, and if you wish to push your
denominational interests in the South, you must establish your
churches there and let the question of slavery alone.” We have
lived long enough to hear these brethren confess their mistake.
There are wise and good brethren now that say: “_Theoretically_,
caste is all wrong, but it exists and can’t be overthrown, and if
you wish to press your denominational work in the South, you must
ignore that question and plant your churches on the color line.”
Somebody will live to hear those who take this position confessing
their mistake. The American Missionary Association stands now on
the caste question just where it once stood in regard to slavery.
It will neither dodge nor compromise, and will plant schools and
churches in the South, if at all, openly and avowedly disregarding
class distinctions. It makes no effort to bring the races together,
yet any man, woman or child, otherwise qualified, will be welcomed
to its schools and churches, even if God has made him black. In
waging this warfare in America, it is doing a Christian missionary
work against caste in heathen nations of the old world.
SCHOOL ECHOES.
Question.—“When and how long did Solomon reign?”
Answer.—“10,000 years before Christ. He rained forty days and forty
nights.”
Question.—“Susy, can you tell me what I read to you about
yesterday?”
Answer.—“Christ and the twelve opossums.”
In Mississippi, one of our teachers taught her class faithfully the
golden text, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground.” The next Sunday, only one
girl could remember it, and she recited it thus: “Moses, Moses,
take off them shoes.”
The colored preachers of the old time, in selecting their
illustrations from Bible characters, are wont to give them a
strongly imaginative turn; as for instance when one, in a long
story of Abraham’s trial in offering up Isaac, represented him as
“going along, holding on and not making any fuss during the journey
by day, but at night when Isaac was not by, as praying and crying
all night.”
ENGLISH AS SHE IS WRITTEN BY INDIAN STUDENTS.
THE RACES.—They are five races, which are the white and yellow, and
black and red and brown. The yellow race likes to eat rat, and the
black race likes to eat man, and the white race likes to eat frog,
and the red race likes to eat buffalo.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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