The American Missionary — Volume 50, No. 03, March, 1896

One-third of the fiscal year passed on Feb. 1st without any special campaign of appeals in behalf of the debt and the suffering work of the American Missionary Association. We have constantly reported to its supporting churches and friends the exact financial condition of the Association. We have reiterated the call voted at our Annual Meeting for such enlargement of support as will bring the receipts of this semi-centennial year up to $500,000. We have emphasized the urgency of the present and prospective needs of the work.

We are sensible of the pressure made upon the churches to increase their benefactions along the different lines of the Congregational mission service. We rejoice over their increased offerings in this critical period, although the support of their work through the American Missionary Association has not been increased. Their contributions to the Association in these past four months stand at about the disastrous figure of the corresponding period last year. The other eight months of that year suffered from a disheartening reduction which raised the total debt to nearly a hundred thousand dollars. If the coming eight months are to bring the same proportionate reduction which the corresponding eight months of last year suffered, we frankly say now and here that a new debt will be incurred in addition to the old one. We cannot avoid it and we cannot remain silent about it.

What now? Must our debt grow? We cannot reduce our working forces on the instant. We cannot at once call off our missionaries whom we have engaged for the current year and to whom we have pledged their support. They have both the moral and the legal right to their support for the time stipulated. This is a necessity in the administration of the missionary societies which are called to employ large numbers of missionaries. They must keep faith with their workers.

What now? Reduction? Within the last three years we have reduced our work by $124,000. But our receipts were reduced in increasing measure each year by a total of $224,000. Further reduction? Yes, as soon as possible, under present engagements, if it must be so. Is this the decision of the Christian people in the churches? Is it wise? Is it necessary? Must the life-blood of these missions to the poorest, the most needy of all the peoples in America be shed? Does not the condition of these lowly and helpless millions cry out to God against it?

The American Missionary Association has been providentially called to minister to the down-trodden, the submerged millions of our common country. Their distressful needs are in danger of being left aside in the pressure of other worthy appeals for aid. Will not the thoughtful, the large-minded and large-hearted, who lead in every benevolent service of the churches, come to the rescue of this imperiled Christian service? Will they not make this fiftieth year of the American Missionary Association a year of jubilee by bringing an advance of at least a hundred thousand dollars before the assembling of our great Boston Convention in October?

BISHOP HAYGOOD.--The recent death of Atticus G. Haygood of the Methodist Episcopal Church South has removed a very useful man from among those who are conscientiously engaged in the uplifting of the colored people and in promoting harmony between the two races in the South. In the writing of his books and his numerous articles for the press, in his conscientious administration of the Slater Fund and in his work as Bishop, he has rendered a permanent benefit to his church and the country.

PAMPHLETS AND ADDRESSES.

Since the publication, in a recent number of THE MISSIONARY, of the list of the documents ready for distribution on application of our friends, we add the following:

Annual Report of the Association.

Sermon by Rev. WM. HAYES WARD, D.D., "Instead of thy Fathers shall be thy Children."

Citizenship and Christianity, by Rev. SHERROD SOULE.

The Debt of Our Country to the American Highlanders During the War, by Secretary C. J. RYDER. (Reprint, illustrated.)

"GREAT TRUTHS SIMPLY TOLD" is the title of a most excellent little book compiled by Prof. George L. Wood, of Philadelphia. A special fund has been contributed by a friend interested in the circulation of this useful little volume, which makes it possible for us to offer to our missionaries a limited number, if they will write asking for the same. We are very glad to be able in this way to give a wider circulation to this valuable book, which will prove useful in teaching Christian truth.

INCREASED GIFTS.--We are glad to learn that the Prospect Hill Church, Somerville, Mass., of which Rev. E. S. Tead is pastor, have just added 65 per cent. to their gifts of last year to our work. The Grace Church of South Framingham, of which Rev. F. E. Emrich is pastor, have also increased their gifts by about $200 over last year.

"HOSANNA"--"CRUCIFY."

On an ever-memorable day, the Son of Man rode into Jerusalem. A vast multitude of people thronged the streets and cast their garments and palm branches before Him, and with unbounded enthusiasm cried "Hosanna in the highest!" But only a few days later that same multitude, as cruel as they were fickle, followed the Son of Man with the fiendish cry "Crucify him! crucify him!" ceasing not until he hung on the cross, and then they taunted him with sneers and mockings.

The followers of the Son of Man are sometimes called in their measure to pass through almost similar circumstances changing from the highest praise to the bitterest denunciation. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, that grand old man, who surpasses all others of this generation in his knowledge of the great men of his times and in his accurate and vivid descriptions of them, has given, in a recent article in The Evangelist, a striking sketch of some of the prominent clergymen and laymen of this city two generations past:

"The death of that noble Christian philanthropist, William A. Booth, removes from us about the last survivor of a remarkable group of men who for three-quarters of a century impressed themselves most deeply on the religious life of New York and the whole country. Among the earlier members of this group were the brothers, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Harlan Page, Anson G. Phelps, Moses Allen, R. T. Haines, W. W. Chester, and Joshua Leavitt, who was one of the earliest editors of The Evangelist. Later on we come upon the names of William E. Dodge, Christopher R. Robert, William A. Booth, Apollos Wetmore, R. M. Hartley, Robert Carter, James Brown, and Jesse W. Benedict. Other names might be added to this roll of honor, but these were representative and conspicuous.

"As far back as 1825 Arthur Tappan might have been called the most prominent Christian layman in New York. His moral courage and philanthropic zeal made him on a humbler scale what Lord Shaftesbury became on a larger scale in London. Those were days of foundation-laying of great religious enterprises. The Home Missionary Society, the American Temperance Society, the American Sunday-school Union, and the Seamen's Friend Society were born about that time. In February, 1825, Arthur Tappan sent on to Boston for the Rev. Wm. A. Hallock, who before sunrise on a winter morning presented himself at Mr. Tappan's door. They called together a few warm-hearted Christians--among whom were Messrs. Allen, Haines, and Chester--and the American Tract Society was organized, and its new building was erected. It was while in the employ of the Tract Society that Harlan Page did his wonderful work as a consecrated laborer for the conversion of souls."

It was not Dr. Cuyler's purpose to follow these men in their later experiences. But we take the liberty of doing so in respect to one of the persons named, Arthur Tappan, of whom Dr. Cuyler says that as far back as 1825 he might have been called "the most prominent Christian layman in New York." If we step down nine years to 1834, we shall find that same Arthur Tappan ostracized by his former associates, ridiculed and denounced by the press, a reward of $50,000 offered for his head, and his store assailed by an infuriated mob, and defended inside by Mr. Tappan and his little band of clerks, of whom the editor and proprietor of The Independent was then one. It is not too much to say that in 1834 Arthur Tappan was the best-abused man in New York.

It may be asked with surprise, What had made this great change? The answer is simple: He had become an abolitionist. The same zeal in the Master's cause which led him to do so much in founding and sustaining the great missionary and benevolent enterprises, induced him to assist the anti-slavery cause, which had then come forward. He felt a profound sympathy for the oppressed slave, and rejoiced to do what he could to secure his emancipation.

It should be remarked that Mr. Tappan did not agree with those abolitionists who denounced the Constitution and the Church. On the contrary, he took a leading part in the formation of a new anti-slavery society that was established in opposition to those extremists. He was the president of that new society for many years. Mr. Tappan used the same quiet and unassuming methods in giving his time, influence, and money to the anti-slavery cause as he did to the other benevolent and missionary enterprises.

Now we think that the Son of Man, assailed by the mob in the Garden and crucified on Calvary that He might save the world, was more exalted, and revealed His divine character more distinctly, than when He was surrounded by the hosannas of the thoughtless and fickle mob. So, in like manner and at a humble distance, Arthur Tappan reached his highest point of honor as a patriotic Christian man when, for the sake of the poor and downtrodden slaves, he was willing to bear reproach and jeopardize his life in their behalf.

Mr. Tappan and his associates, fifty years ago, founded the American Missionary Association amid the obloquy and danger that surrounded anti-slavery people in that day; and now, as the Association is rejoicing in its successful and honored work in this its Jubilee year, we take pleasure in its behalf in testifying to the courage and self-sacrificing labors of its founders.

From The Independent.

THE PRESENT NEED OF THE INDIANS.

BY MISS ANNA L. DAWES.

It would appear that there was a certain definite loss to the cause of Christianity among the Indians when that work ceased to be called Foreign Missions, and became Home Missions. In the face of much opposition and many sneers since the day it first discovered its "marching orders," the Church has never ceased to believe it to be its duty to go out into all the world and preach the gospel, and persecution, neglect, or starvation have only served to intensify its zeal. It must preach the gospel to the heathen. But in regard to Home Missions the Church has felt that it may preach the gospel to neighbors, not that it _must_--that it is a good and desirable thing to do, but by no means an inexorable duty. If the Indians had remained foreign heathen, we might hope for a Students' Volunteer movement, for an Inland Mission, for a zeal beyond wisdom which even sets forth to preach the gospel in the midst of war. The Indians are as pagan as the Japanese or the Hindus, for instance: their redemption is as great a necessity as the redemption of the Chinese. Their chiefs plead for help and teachers in no less touching fashion than do South African kings. But those fill us with missionary zeal. We cry unto heaven for money and opportunity to go over seas to convert those; but these, the heathen in our very midst, most of us neither see nor hear. Can it be because there is neither romance nor mystery about these others? The test of the reality of our zeal is before us here and now. We may measure the value of our professions for ourselves.