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You I.
TOOMER, WHITE, PLEASANT & CO., 1
Publishers. j
[From the Tribune]
METHODISM IN THE SOUTH.
REMARKS OF THE REV. MR. LEE AT
THE MEETING OF THK METHODIST
PREACHERS.
The subject before the meeting of
Methodist clergymen at No. 85 Broad
way yesterday was one bearing on the
relations of the Methodists of the South
ern Church to their brethren of the
North. The Rev. Mr. Lee. Presiding
Elder of the Atlanta District ot the
Georgia Conference, gave an account ot
the work of the Northern Mothodists
among the freedmen and of the financial
and political difficulties they have to
contend v ith Mr. Lee is here as the
representative of the Freedman’s Aid
Society, with the hope of awakening
greater interest at the North in the
missionary work of the South.
Before the slaves were emancipated,
Mr Lee said the Southern Methodists
prided themselves on their con
cern tor the spiritual well-being ot the
negroes, but after the war and the
formation of the Colored Methodist
Church they gave themselves no more
concern on their account. Consequent
ly, when the Northern Methodist under
took to educate and improve the moral
nature of the negro, boutheru Metho
dists gave the cold shoulder, and there
has been no fellowship between them in
th? same localities. Tne Southern Meth
odist Episcopal Church North had no
good right to extend its ministration
across Mason and Dixon's hoe. When
the missionary work began, the North
ern Church at the South had 48,000
white and 20.000 colored members.
Since the w;r. 300.000 members have
been added, and the membership is
divided now about 190,000 white and
180,000 colored communicant. On the
border the colored and white Confer
ences are kep: wholly distinct, and the
colored churches are allowed to work
almost independently. In more south
ern districts the Conferences are mixed,
but the churches t hem-elves are kept
distinct. In Georgia the Not them
Church has 45 white aud 67 co.ored
ministers. As a iule there are no
churches with mixed membership.
White pastors are in charge of colored
churches usually when a school is
attached to the churches. Some tew
ministers are well qualified to take care
of the schools.
Mr. Lee had consideiable to say about
the prejudice which exists South against
the negro schools and mission.try work
as tending to inculcate the idea ot social
equality. Within a year an accomplish
ed colored female teacher on the Flint
River abandoned her school ow'ing to the
repeated threats of the white residents.
Wlh c @bIoo&
WITH MALICE TOWARD NONE; WITH CHARITY FOR ALL.
Saturday, April 1, 1876.
A white lady who has been teaching for
eight years in the South in that time
had received only two calls from white
people oftbe neighborhood, who showed s '
anj interest in her work. Aloiig the
lines of railraod, Mr. Lee says, the
negroes are becoming enlightened, but
be knows from much traveling in the
interior, that there are many places
where farm hands scarcely know that
they are emancipated. In many places
the men are paid onlv $6O per year each
and the women $2O. Each hand supplied
with rations for himself or herself, but
not for their families. Under such condi
tions it is imposible tor them to do much
toward supporting their schools aud
churches. The Southern Grange move
ment serve to regulate the low’ price of
wages, and its influence is felt mainly
throughout the slave belt. Many negroes
are viitually in a state ot peonage. The
State School Superintendent of Georgia
is making an effort to keep schools open
three months in the year. This covers
a part ot the cotton picking season, and
practically the school season is much
shorter. The County Superintendent
refused to take colored teachers from the
Atlanta Normal School, on the ground
that they bad sat at table with thtir white
teachers and bad received social equality
notions. The school houses and
churches are very cheap, the churches
not averging a value ot more than $2OO.
The negroes in the Co ton States own
$1,500,060 of church properly. Tbe
Methodist Church South is the most
influential among the white people, and
Mr. Lee says it exerts a strong political
influence hurtful to missionray labor.
—Christian Recorder.
Tbe following extract is frem a ser
mon preached in Brooklyn on tbe sth
uit., by Rev. John Parker. We com
mend it to the public :
We need chiefly a leassertion of law’
and justice in the public mind, and a
raising out of tbe mere sickly sentiment
ality which shields or sympathizes with
rich felons and murderers. Give us
such a reassertion, and it will be im
possible that a rich murderer like
Landis, or a political murderer like
Scannell, shall be acquitted on the
insanity plea and let loose on society to
prey again when their insanity returns.
Give us a just pre-eminence of law and
a wholesome public sentiment regard
ing the maintenance ot the right, and no
lawyer would dare defy tne scorn ot an
indignant public in defending for enor
mous fees a great public outlaw. Give
us less ot the feeble, mawkish sentiment
of pity tor criminals, make those crinr
nals afraid ot the law and its adminis
tration. and compel lawyers to serve the
interests of morality and good order,
f Price $1 00 a Year, Payable Quarterly in
I Advance. Single copies 5 Cts.
c r else shun them as the nuisance and
pest of society, No more shedding of
great criminals for great fees No more
worts to demonstrate that crime is in
nocent if committed by a man in power
or one who can pay. A little more iron
itr your blood. A little more ol the old
Roman justice in our courts. A little
more reverence for revealed truth and
for God. These aie all which we must
have. May God help us to tone up the
morals of the laud to a higher standard.
We want unselfish love and the recog
nition of God and His authority and
the doctrine of personal responsibility.
Restore the popular conviction that the
old bible doctrine of responibility means
something; and that God’s displeasure
with sin means something; that a dis
honest man cannot be a Christian; that
if a man acts below the standard of
Christian morality he is unfr for Chris
tian communion, and ought to be ex
pelled from, tbe church or reformed.
Make it impossible that the world shall
wag tl&bead ind -ay that dishonest men
hold place in the Church of God. Com
mon honest) -ought to be so common as
not to be ranked very high. It has be
come so scarce, however, that we have
come to set a rare value on it, and we
must demand it at the door of the
church.
Again, brother, resolve to be real. In
these days of distrust, everything false
should be put aside by yOu. The mo
menLftjau abandon the truth for a
shMmb have no right to be be
lie ’
—A Bengal missionary hired a boat
lor a water journey, and found that the
Mohammedan boatmen spent much of
their leisure time in singing the current
filthy songs of the country. He gave
them a new Bengal hymn-book, pre
pared by a native pastor, having most
of its hymns in Bengal meter. After
some time another missionary took a
journey, and chanced to hire the same
boat. He found, to his surprise, that
the bo it men were now, in the intervals
of their labor, singing Christian hymns.
Half the people who are making this
uproar over the exclusion ot the Bible
from the public schools couldn’t tell on
their own responsibility whether the
Book of Genesis was written by St. Paul
or Hamlet. —Danbury News.
r-n—j RUFUS FORD,
First-Class
B sOT AND SHOE MAKER,
88 Whitaker street.
Repairing done cheap and neatly.
ian*22-tf
No. 18
