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2 THE PRESBYTERIA1
COLORED EVANGELIZATION.
The month of December has been set apart by our
church for the offerings to the great work of Colored
Evangelization. In the face of difficulties which are
well nigh immeasurable, the Church has been prosecuting
this work for nearly four decades. Thirty-three
years ago one of its chief features, a school for the
training of a colored ministry, was established at Tus
caioosa, under the charge of the late Dr. C. A. Stillman.
Following Dr. Stillman, Dr. A. L. Phillips devoted
his time and talent to the great work, in the secretaryship
of this cause. "Then Rev. D. C. Lilly, pastor
of the Presbyterian church in Tuscaloosa, was
elected Secretary, and for awhile gave much time,
while still pastor, towards arousing an interest in the
work. He was ably assisted by another most godly
and consecrated man, Rev. O. B. Wilson, then a teacher
at the Institute. It has been said of Mr. Wilson,
that, 'When one of God's workers has been removed
another is always ready to take his place?but so far
there has been found no other Wilson.' When Mr.
Wilson was killed bv lieditninp whil?? talL-ino
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telephone to Dr. Lilly, and the latter's life was spared,
he felt called as if by God, to give his entire time to
the work. He shortly afterwards resigned the pastorate
of the church to give himself fully to the Secretaryship."
Since 1903 Dr. J. G. Snedecor has had charge
of it, and the work has grown apace. In the past six
years the contributions of the church have increased
nearly one hundred per cent.
The departments of work, or lines of effort, of the
Committee of Colored Evangelization, are the following:
1. To educate and train good, sensible preachers
at Stillman Institute; 2. to assist in building neat
churches: 1 to cimonMco ???? ?j - - ??
, u. ? tnvuuidgc, ana partially
support the pastors of colored Presbyterian churches;
4. to organize Sunday-schools taught by white people;
5. to have an Executive Secretary, giving his whole
time to pushing forward these various lines of work,
having special charge of Stillman Institute; 6. to establish
parochial and industrial day schools taught by
our colored pastors. This outline, given us by the
Secretary, indicates the compass and purpose of the
work and tells the church what it is that they are asked
to support when the call is made for contributions to
this cause.
While all the results desired have not yet come, there
has been splendid product from the efforts of the
church in this department of its Master's work. If
there were no oth#?r miicnmo * ! .???
__ v??vv.xv, inai gi cat mission on
the Congo would be enough to justify all that God's
people have given of interest and money to this cause.
Dr. Stillman and the professors of the Institute overtured
the General Assembly, in 1889, to establish the
African Mission, the next year one of its graduates,
W. H. Sheppard, was sent out, with the sainted Lapsley,
and from that time to this day the Mission has
been conducted largely by those who have obtained
their training in the Institute. The Mission in the
Congo Free State is one of the marvels of the day.
The largest congregations known in all the extent of
our church gather in that land and receive the gospel
which our church has sent out as the result of its interest
in colored evangelization.
M OF THE SOUTH. December i, 1909.
In his strong appeal for contributions in the month
of December, the Secretary makes several wise suggestions
to his brethren. He urges, among other
things, that in their appeals to the generous and devoted
people of the church, they should not discuss the
race problem, that they do not discuss the future or
the past of the Negro, that they do not discuss educational
and social problems, that they stick to missionary
lines, that they take the strongest pro-Southern
position. God has made the races. It is for us simply
to recognize the fact. The past and the future of the
race is not our concern in spiritual matters. Our duty
.a utici iiuucu oy present conditions. The general educational
or social problem is not the concern of the
church, beyond providing enough training to enable
the Negro to preach sensibly and to hear with understanding.
THE BENEFACTIONS OF MR. KENNEDY.
The papers, secular and religious, have taken pleasure
in recording the generous gifts of Mr. John Stewart
Kennedy, recently deceased in New York. He
possessed the rare combination of being one of the richest
men and at the same time one of the most modest
men in that city. His bequests to religious purposes
amounted to about twenty million dollars. Yet when
the reporters of the New York dailies wanted to print
a copy of his picture in the daily papers they were
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M*.uiy?v IU OV.CLI1 t d puuiograpn irom which to copy.
He had given a hundred thousand dollars at a time,
during his lifetime, yet the public rarely' or never
heard of his gifts.
Under his will nine colleges receive a hundred thousand
dollars each. Among these are Hampton, in Vir.
ginia, and Tuskegee, in Alabama. Nine others receive
fifty thousand dollars; among them are the Anatolic
College at Marsovan, Turkey, and the Northfield
Seminary and Mount Vernon Boys' School, in Massachusetts.
To Robert College at Constantinople, he gives a million
and a half; to the Presbyterian Boards of Foreign
Missions, of Home Misisons, of Church Extension,
two million and a quarter to each.
The Syrian Protestant College at Beirut, Center
College and Berea College in Kentucky, each come in
C A? C? ? ....
iui iwcuiy-nve mousand dollars.
We have been thinking what these benefactions
mean to the various benevolent works.
In the field of Home Missions, how many congregations
are there, on the borders of our land, in which a
dozen pioneers have united to organize a church, and
are struggling feebly for the want of a house of worship.
All the world over, human nature leads hesitant
neighbors to hold back from joining a church that
has not a sanctuary, lest they be called on too freely
for money with which to build. This bequest will enable
the Home Mission Committee to lend or to give
to many a struggling congregation a contribution sufficient
to complete its sanctuary free from debt, and
in this the work of Missions will be wonderfully promoted."
In the foreign mission field the laborers have suffered
for years from the lack of proper dwellings in
unhealthy localities. We have seen one mission family