The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
What do we propose to do about it? What do we propose to do with more
than two millions for whom Christ died, American citizens, in the very
heart of our Nation, around whom the currents of commerce and industry
swirl every day? Shall the greatest tidal wave of all time pass them by,
and they not feel it for a moment? More than all, shall the great gospel
of God, which is life, and hope, and peace, and home, for us, be nothing
for them?
I am happy to say that it is not all dark by any manner of means. Your
committee is hopeful, the members of this Association are hopeful, our
brethren on the frontier are hopeful. There are very many favorable
things, and one of the most favorable is their increasing numbers. Do we
stop to estimate what two millions of souls means? More than thirty
thousand cradles filled in a single year.
These men respect the Bible. They feel a superstitious regard for it;
they are not infidel people. They have a simple, childlike faith, and
the Bible word is to them final. Many things that many of us have to
contend with, the brethren there do not meet I mean in the field of
infidelity.
They have great respect for woman if she respects herself. I have the
statement of one of our workers in the South that a woman can go even
among these men when they are drunk, and if she respects herself and has
maintained her character she is perfectly safe in their midst.
This same writer tells me of a young man who went out from one of their
schools, and kept school in a certain place during the winter, When he
returned, he said: "Nothing would tempt me to go back there again." Not
so with the young ladies. It is one of the most astonishing signs of the
times that really into the feeble hand of womanhood is given the key of
the situation. They respect these girls, they reverence them and give
them a place of dignity in their hearts. That makes it possible for
these women to do a large and splendid work in the South.
Once let these girls that come under the influence of our Christian
Northern women who go there as teachers, and the graduates of these
various colleges and schools that we have planted, and are about to
plant in the South; once let common womanhood in the South that has been
so much under the heel of this oppression; once let girlhood feel the
power that has come go girlhood, that to them as young women in the
cradle of these hills, under this fair sky is given the power to turn
over in not less than thirty or forty years this whole country for God
and humanity, for enlightenment and for Christian peace;--once let that
idea get into the minds of these girls, and we have not the same problem
that we have to-day.
There is good blood there as well. There is a man in Congress to-day,
honoring himself and his district and his nation, who went to school
there, and I know not for how many years wore but one garment. I call
that pretty good blood when from such circumstances a man can come up to
such a large place.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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