The American Missionary — Volume 35, No. 7, July, 1881

The reports of the exercises at Hampton, Va., and Fisk University, Nashville, Tenn., were written by Virginians, and give a good idea of the drift of thought concerning our institutions among the better class of Southern people.

The gift of Mrs. Stone of $150,000 for new buildings at Fisk, Atlanta, Talladega, and New Orleans; the new educational institution at Austin, Texas, and our new churches organized the past year at the South, make additional demands upon our treasury. The churches should not be left to a feeble struggle for life, but be aided to a vigorous growth. The additional facilities at the schools mentioned, and the new institution in Texas, mean an increased number of students to be aided, and increased expense for teachers, for insurance, repairs and other incidentals. Our work among the Chinese in California calls urgently for enlargement; in fact, the continued existence of such a work means continued growth with increased expenditures.

A great pressure has been brought to bear upon us to do more for the education of Indian youth; but the work cannot be done without money. The success, however, at Carlisle and Hampton indicates clearly the hopefulness of doing much more. Mr. Arthington, of Leeds, England, has paid over £3,000, and British Christians have given a like amount, for a new mission on the Upper Nile, in East Central Africa; but the opening of the Arthington Mission will require $10,000 annually for its support.

It will be seen by these statements that the entrance to our different fields of labor has been thrown open more widely. We must settle the question as to whether we shall enter; but to enter means continued and efficient occupancy. “Occupy till I come” is the command of the Great Teacher. The gate is not open to a haven of rest, but to a field of labor, and additional labor calls for additional expense. Nothing short of an increase of 25 per cent. of the income of the Association will be adequate to meet the increased demands. The pastors and officers of the churches are our most effectual helpers in raising the amount required. Will they not come to our relief right early? The people will give of their means if the work and its wants are properly presented to them; and if God has set before us these open doors, surely He will add His blessing as we enter.

One of the “decisive battles” to be fought by and in behalf of the colored people of the South is on the field of intemperance. Slavery made this vice impossible. Emancipation, with all its manifold blessings, opened the gates to its entrance, and these once opened, it now pours in like a flood.

The cannonading has already begun in some of the Southern States in regard to prohibition, local option and other legal safeguards; but in this, as in other battles, small arms and the hand-to-hand fight must win the victory. Man by man, must the victims of this vice be warned and rescued, and especially must the young, individual by individual, be instructed, warned, pledged to personal abstinence, and enlisted in the work of saving others. The schools of the American Missionary Association are the very citadels of drill and equipment in this warfare. Their students must be the vanguard in the onset, and the “old guard” that “never surrenders” in the hottest fight.

We rejoice to know that our schools and their students are alert and active in their duties in this respect. Temperance literature and the prayers of God’s people are invoked in their behalf.

Prof. Alphonse de Candolle, son and successor of the great naturalist, wrote, a few years since, some interesting speculations on the probable future of the human race. This paper was deemed of sufficient value to be republished in the Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, for the year 1875. In the course of his discussion the eminent writer shows reason for believing that the last man is to be, not one man, but three. The future history of mankind, leaving out of the account any possible catastrophe that might suddenly extinguish the race, will be, in his view, somewhat as follows.

For an extended period the population of the globe, favored by improved methods of agriculture, by migration to unoccupied lands, by general prevalence of peace consequent upon higher morality, will increase until the world is stocked with inhabitants to its fullest capacity. Then, after a period, will begin a process of depopulation. The conditions of life in the colder regions will be greatly changed by growing scarcity of the fuel supply; the world’s stock of minerals will be gradually exhausted by rust and wear, which will bring an end of ships, railroads and commerce, and thus increase the difficulty of maintaining life; and the incessant action of water, ice and air will constantly diminish the land area of the globe, until only mountains will remain as islands above the surface of the sea. Under the combined action of these agencies, the principles of natural selection and survival of the fittest will come into play with decisive effect, and in the struggle for life the weaker races will one by one succumb and disappear. Three races, however, exhibit qualities which fit them to survive beyond all others.

1. The white race, as represented by Europeans and their American descendants, thanks to their intelligence and habitual bravery, skill, and the confidence they can place in each other, will sustain the struggle. 2. The negroes also will prevail, on account of their physical vigor, power to resist malaria and to flourish in tropical regions, where the white race rapidly deteriorates. 3. The yellow race, represented principally by the Chinese, will maintain their place, since they have great vigor of stock, a capacity to exist on small resources, and alone seem sufficiently intelligent and robust to struggle in all latitudes with both the other races.

The last man, then, is to be a white man, a negro and a Chinaman. But de Candolle seems to think that the negro may, after all, be the last man of this triumvirate. For the white man, occupying scattered islands in the colder regions, and deprived of fuel, might be exterminated by the more or less periodical invasions of ice from polar regions, while the black man could continue to subsist with little effort on the pulp of tropical melons.

Such is a brief outline of the curious speculations of this eminent savant. Of their value as science or prophecy, of their correspondence with Biblical views of the future of human history, let the reader make his own judgment. The writer simply asks attention to a few obvious suggestions.

1. It is a very significant fact that a man of recognized eminence as a scientist should, in a glance at the probable future of mankind, give so important a place to the despised African. It is a fact that more than justifies all the deep interest of the Christian and the philanthropist in that unfortunate race. Christians are not in any danger of giving undue attention to the claims of the negro upon their prayers and benefactions.

2. The conclusions of science, that the African race is fitted to persist among the latest inhabitants of the earth, are confirmed by the evidence of facts. The census of 1880 produced two genuine surprises. First, the fact that the largest relative increase of population in the United States during the last decade was in the former slave States. Second, that this result was due to the fact that while the increase of the whites of those States was some two per cent. below the average for the whole country, the increase of the blacks was more than three per cent. above that average.

It is thus demonstrated that negroes are not to be numbered with those races which, like Australians, Hawaiians and American Indians, fade away and disappear in the presence of more civilized races. The negro in warm latitudes has shown his ability, with less than a fair chance, to hold more than his own with the white man. We may no longer hope that the grave problems, social, political and religious, connected with his residence in our land, are to be solved by the gradual extinction of the race. The black man will not die; he must be instructed and evangelized.

3. If we are to have black men and yellow men for our neighbors to the end of time, it is for our interest to be on good terms with them. As a matter of policy it will be best for us to do all we can to make them comfortable—I may even say, companionable neighbors.

It will be remembered by our readers that during the last week in May the six co-operative Societies sustained largely by the Congregationalists, hold anniversary meetings in Boston. This year the meetings were held on Wednesday, the 25th. The day was bright and breezy, and the congregations throughout were larger than usual. The meeting of the American Missionary Association closed the morning session.

A report was made by Secretary Woodworth, reviewing, in brief, the several branches of the work carried on by the Association during the past nineteen years. Mr. Woodworth’s address was replete with facts and statistics, giving a comprehensive view of the importance, success and necessities of the Association.

Rev. J. F. Lovering, of Worcester, was the first speaker. During his address he mentioned the fact that a negro family of his acquaintance, in Massachusetts, found it difficult to rent a house on account of their color, and argued that if there be such prejudices still at the North, we ought not to be surprised if they yet exist at the South. He related several instances coming under his observation during the war, showing the religious nature of the colored people and their love for knowledge, closing his address with a graphic description of a company of colored women and children singing songs of thanksgiving to troops returning from the war.