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Sii fptistf Ai VOL. XXVII NO 43. THE ORGAN OF THE NORTH CAROLINA CONFERENCE OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH. ESTABLISHED 1855 OUR EDUCATIONAL ENTERPRISES. BY REV. A. G. HAYGOOD, D. D. Our Methodist Episcopal Church, couth, shows to disadvantage in her sta tistics of education measure them by whatever the reader please. What we have clone is not commensurate with our opportunities from 1844 to ig6i, nor from 1S65 to- 1882. Make the test in any direction, we have the same result we have not done what we could. If we in quire into our Church Colleges, we reach this conclusion ; we have buried more col lies than we have endowed. We have to-day (witness the tabulated statement by the General Conference Committee on Ed ucation) but three male colleges tolerably endowed. I say tolerably, for only one of the three is endowed in any broad sense of the word. Of these, Missouri Metho dist gave to one what it has ; to one, the richest of them, a Northern man gave nearly the whole ; to the third, another Northern man gave three-fourths of its endowment, and more than half of its in vestment in buildings. So far as I know, we have one Female College with $50, 000 endowment; a Northern man gave that. No other has that. He gave also more than half of the cost of its splendid buildings. Honor to these men! Heaven's blessings rest on them ! So we feel and pray. And do not "all -the people say, Amen ?" It is an open secret, that many of our male colleges are in a life and death strug gle for existence. Their endurance to this time is one of the marvels. Nothing is more marvelous except the fact they have done such good work and so much of it, with such disadvantages. When men prize weights with the short end of a lever, they must put forth their whole strength. Even with this expenditure of force, the ordinary experience is a failure. None know so well as do the faculties of our poorly furnished colleges, that they might have done far better work with some bet ter facilities. The struggles of the teach ers of the Church to fulfill their sacred ministry of Christian instruction, make a chapter in our Church history that few ap preciate, and none can tell. That chap ter can never be written. And we are making history for more chapters of this inexpressible sort. How long will this state of things last ? Till the Church un derstands that education is one of its nor mal functions a part of its real business in this world a work that it must do. We have not yet, as to the mass of us, reach ed this knowledge or the conviction that should grow out of it. The view of the majority may perhaps be stated simply in this way : Education is a good thing ; a College is to be desired, in our town or Conference ; it is best that it be under the direction of the Church ; it i well enough to authorize "the bishop presiding" to ap point some of the preachers to carry it on; our preachers who are Presidents and Professors, though not "in the regular work,' are doing a good sort of work, wh'ch, upon the whole, "Conference' ap proves ; an endowment is to be desired ; if it "conies to us," it is well ; if it does not, we will get on somehow ; "something will turn up 'by and by,and then ourChurch schools will have a good time ; meantime e w 11 appoint a "Visiting Committee' and pass resolutions on general principles. If all this be counted satire, it is in the facts and not in the phrases. It is common among us to say : "We are poor that is the reason we have not done more." Does this meet the needs of ur vindication ? There was money once; hat did we then ? It cannot be doubted that the majority of our people are very Poor poorer than the reports of Comp iler Generals and tax-assessors and their st'le of living show them to be. More 0xer, and especially applicable to the ex planations of our shortcomings in the ed- Ucational work of the Church, is the fact that there is little money among the mas-ses- There may be one millionaire among Je nearly one million of our church mem-rs- But does anybody know him? vynere is he? Above all, what proof of large wealth has h e ever given in so far as Kberal 11 !y is such proof? Comparatively few of our people have money ".aid by." But granting all that can be iustlv claimed n tlle score of our poverty, this ugly truth plains : We are not, as a Church, doing what we can and ought to do. RALEIGH, The trouble is, the few who can give sums of considerable magnitude do not do it. Why not? Some say, we have not had any good system for raising money for educa tional interests. This answer satisfies some people, as the plea of poverty satis fies others. One thing is certain, there has been no lack of begging no lack of opportunity to give to the work of educa tion among us. The lack has been in the giving. Lest some may find more consolation in the plea of "no system" than truth allows, this further remark is ventured : we do about as well in our contributions to edu cation as we do for missions. We have reached about the same stage of "develop ment" in each line of Church life. Where is the trouble ? If the truth he desired the answer is two-fold : 1. Undue love of money; otherwise . 2. For the most part, want of knowledge, compre hension conviction. We have not grasp ed the subject of education. We do not know how necessary it is that the Church do this part of her work. We do not rea lize our poverty in men and women, prepar ed for the best work of the world. We do not understand that we are behind the age in which we live in these matters. But the conviction of the real truth in the case is fastening itself on some minds, and, like many other convictions made by the truth, it is very painful. Our papers and our preachers should take hold of this Educational question with both hands. Our chief clergy, es pecially our Bishops, should lead the way. They have done something, but they should and can do more. Let them write and preach giving the facts facts that burn and hurt. When our people wake up they will do something. Of good rules and resolutions there has never been any lack. The first thing with an American meeting whether civil or ecclesiastical is to "resolve. Let us hope that good comes of he "annual res olutions." Since I began this article a little pamphlet has been shown me which will do to stud'. It is very small 24 mo. 22 pages being the "Minutes of the Third Session of the Mount Zion Baptist Sunday School Convention, held October 22 and 23, 1881. "Mount Zion" is the name of a very small colored Baptist Church in Mid dle Georgia, recently organized. Mt. Zion held a "Sunday School Convention," but the members did not allow themselves to be shut in by any narrow limits. In the little pamphlet before me are reports on Education, Temperance, Mis ions, as well as Sunday Schools. Also, Constitu tion and By-Laws. I have read it with deep interest. The poor negro's effort to feel h s way into the lierht at least into the white man's methods and manners is pathet c beyond words. The Report of Committee on Ed ucation I must give your readers, seeing it is brief, if not pointed. I give it all : "Brother Moderator ad lir'threa : We, your Committee on Education, are ready to report. After a close examination, we find that there is an acknowledged need of education among our people. We should solemnly pledge ourselves to use every exertion to promote every cause of education, in both Sunday Schools and private schools. We do earnestly be seech you all tha- our progress may be an advancement. We pray that the sunlight of education may spread all over the Uni verse. We are troubled about our people and country, and we desire to lead the poor widows and children to the marvel ous light by the help of the Supreme Be-ino-. Oh that we had the power to turn the darkness into light. Our efforts are 10 reach out and grasp every tongue, nation and kindred, and bring them to the mar velous light, before we cease, and, after this is done, we pray God Almighty may waft this Convention, and every soul in glory, when they have accomplished this work here below. We want this Conven tion to appoint a man from each school to go in his own settlement and endeavor to bring the parents and children to the light of the Sabbath School . "Respectfully submitted, , Committee.'' "The report was adopted. Upon which, brief comments : i. Here is asp ration; these people are struggling toward the light and ought to have help. N. C, WEDNESDAY, 2. When the writer of the report fell into "fine writing," he became, as do many white report-writers, cloudily miscellane ous. 3. The last sentence is on the line of success work "in his own settlement. '' The pamphlet gives its two last pages to a "List of Live Members belonging to the Convention" giving the names of those who pay to the "good and glorious cause." "Live" is better than "Life" Members; those who give nothing are dead. Having made these extracts from the "Minutes" of our Colored Baptist breth ren's Convention, let me close with an ex tract from a letter from one cf our white brethren a member of one of our Con ferences : "There is a young colored man here that we vvant to educate. Can you re commend me to a good school for colored people under the patronage of our Church ?" I recommended a College under the patronage of the M. E. Church. Does the reader guess why? Baltimore E. Metho dist. DO NOT WORRY. How shall I prevent it ? There is no one panacea for worry ; the disease is various and the remedies are various. Sometimes the difficulty is phy sical. It is a brain disease. If a phy sician could feel your pulse he would tell you that you were a little feverish. Your head is hot ; your brain over-excited ; per haps your digestion impaired; at all-events, your nervous system exhausted. You need a chance to recuperate. Thinking, even praying, which is sometimes the most stimulating form of thought, only aggra vates the trouble. Go to sleep ; get a good night's rest ; and in the morning the wor ries will have gone where the black flies go when cold nights come nobody can guess where. But perhaps you can not sleep. Sleep lessness is always a dangerous system of a dangerous disease. The trouble is not merely with the brain, or with the diges tion ; it is with the circulation. Your blood is sluggish ; your nervous system is used up ; your muscular system has had little or no employment. Then do some thins to tire the muscles and start the blood. Do not fall into the delusive snare of "gentle exercise ;" that is admissible only for invalids. Whatsoever you do, do it with all your might. Take a tramp on the hills ; saw wood ; ride horseback ; give fifteen minutes to an Indian club, or a pair of not too heavy dumb-bells ; run ; jump ; dig in the garden ; anything to ex ert your body and stop the exertion of your mind, to set your mucles into exercise and give 3'onr nerves a rest. Get into a glow and a perspiration, and make yourself feel thoroughly, healthily tired. Then take a bath, get on clean, dry clothes, eat a light meal with a good appetite, and go to bed ; and, ten chances to one, you will go to sleep. The cause may be more intellectual than physical. The mind sometimes gets run ning in a certain groove and it can not lift itself out of its groove. It thinks the same thing over and over, and over again ; trots round and rwund in the same dry, dusty I course ; moots the same question, balances again and again the same arguments pro and con, comes to the same decision or indecision and then begins once more. This is the mental process of many a pa tient in the insane asylum ; and it is the mental process of more patients ouside the insane asylum. In such a case the mind ! needs a motive outside itself to move it ! from the groove. ; This is one of the uses of fiction ; of so j ciety ; of games ; of the home circle. Every j man must find his own intellectual pas ! time ; that is best for him which most ef ; fectually breaks up the stupid eddy of his I thoughts and allows them to resume their ' onward current. With one man it is a j book ; with another, children ; with a third, a good horse ; with a fourth, a social game; with a fifth, music. Blessed is the man j whose home gives him such employment I as to turn the current of his thoughts into ' new channels ; whose wife knows how to ' make the cares of the household and the ; children a sweet intrusion, who is wise I enough never to bring the perplexities of , home business up for evening discussion after a hard and wearisome day, and is yet ' wise enough to use the home perplexities to drive other and greater cares awav - 0 NOV. 1, 1882. blessed is the man who has learned how to enter into his children's worries and make them his own, and in making them his own to find relief from the greater cares of the shop and the counting-room. But the causes of worry are not always physical ; they are sometimes spiritual ; then the remedy must be spiritual. Worry is sometimes a mild form of remorse. You have done wrong ; the memory . of it rankles ; you can not get rid of the rank ling. An unconfessed wrong is like a splinter in the flesh ; it festers, and the only remedy for the festering is to take the splinter out. Nothing but repentance and confession can do that. Confess to God ; confess to the individual vou have wrong ed; repair the wrong as much as in you lies ; and thank God that he has given you a conscience that will let you have no peace while you are transgressing. Tlie cause may be still deeper. We worry when we are bent on having our own way and fear lest we shall not ; we cease to worry when it becomes our habit ual and supreme wish that Another shall have his way ; when we learn to pray with out ceasing, "Thy will, not mine, be done." The child worries because he is bent on the picnic, and he fears the gath ering clouds mean rain ; the man worries because his heart is set on preserving his commercial nonor and the impending crisis threatens bankruptcy; the mother worries because she wishes to decide whether her sick child shall live or die, and the decision is not left to her. The remedy for this worry is to have no will but God's will ; to wish nothing but that his kingdom should come and his will be done. It is for the child to learn, I am God's child, 'and he knows best when it should rain ; it is for the man to learn, I am God's agent, and he knows whether I can serve him best by success or bank ruptcy ; it is for the mother to realize that God alone is wise enough to know wheth er life or death is best, and to be able to thank God that he leaves not the respon sibility of choosing to her. Rest, recreation, confession, consecra tion these are the four recipes for worry. Christian Union. CONVERTS AND CHURCH PAPERS. At this season there is another special work for our papers, and the demand for them ought rapidly to increase. The re vivals aie bringing great numbers into the church. What provision is made for pro tecting, establishing, and training them ? The class-meeting has become the excep tion. Even the pulpit and class-meeting are not sufficient for the work of counter vailing all the evils that threaten the soul of the young Christian of this day. Faith ful, active, spiritual laymen, competent and willing to be the pious guardians of the inexperienced members in their com munity, are, alas ! rarely found. The ma jority of the converts are young people without much knowledge of doctrine or of the ways of the world, yet peculiarly impres sible, whether the influence be good or evil. Now, I see no probab;lity of meeting the needs of the young converts unless they are supplied with religious papers. Hence, every revival ought to be followed by a careful canvass for the Advoca'e. Of course, there are ma y other reason- why a Methodist family should have th Church paper. And the N. Y. Methobst marries the N. Y. Advocate While I admire Dr. Wheel er, I must say that I like to hear of such harmonious consolidation. Somehow I can't avoid the conviction that the smaller (in reason) the number of our papers, the larger and better and cheaper those that remain. That paranthetical phrase, (in reason,) witi shield me, will it not ? For some reason, some papers show a better spirit than some others ; and papers in some places seem to have more of St. Paul's attributes of the child of Christ, than papers in some other places seem to have. Possibly it is a matter of climate. Malaria, you know, will produce chills and fevers. We all rejoice at Dr. Fitzgerald's return to Nashville. But while he resumes the duties that he has long discharged so honorably to himself and so profitably to the Church, we insist that he shall draw from Dr. Harrison the promise tocont nue to contribute to the .! c -L Dr. Deems paid North Carolina a visit II. T. HUDSON, I. !., Cor. Editor last week, lecturing to the delight of au diences in Durham and Raleigh. Are your people reading the Christian Philoso phy Quarterly? It is the exponent and agent of the most important enterprise in America. Dr. A. W. Mangum in S. G. Advocate. UNCHARITAB LE CON V E K AS AT ION. The Book of Discipline of ihe Metho dist 'Episcopal Church, South, very pro perly records in the "General Rules" a paragraph against "anchni'able or un profitable conversation," and specifies with marked particularity ihe "speaking evil of magistiates or of ministers." It is to be regretted that this rule, in tended to guard against an evil, is so fre quently forgotten. It is difficult to esti mate the pernicious effects that grow out of an indifference as to the injunction laid down. The usefulness and success of a preachers is very often hindered by an un generous criticism that may fall from the lips of a member of the church, while an unkind reference to him from another preacher eats "as doth a canker, ' damag ing alike to both the preacher who violates the rule and the preacher who is the victim of the untimelv remark. A few days since, a lady,, distinguished for her culture and eminent for her piety and devotion to the Church, inquired of the writer as to the competency of a cer tain preacher for the pastoral charge of the church of which she was a member. The reply was satisfactory. He was an able preacher and devout Christian. "You differ," she answered, "from Brother ; when I asked him the same ques tion, he replied, 'he is an adventurer, a place-seeking and trifling preacher, with a few fine sermons borrowed." These re marks had poisoned her mind, and must affect his ministry, if sent, which is proba ble, to the pastoral charge of the church of which she is a member. She added, how ever, "I reckon jealousy had something to do with what he said." No body of men have the character of each other more fully in their keeping than have Methodist preachers. Damage to one is an injury to all. Let us, there fore, each consider himself as his "broth er's keeper." The Gladiator. GOSSIPING. The first gossip the world ever had was the Devil. And as if out of honor for this pioneer mischief-maker, the order has been kept up most ass"duously. He came to our first parents with two things, a truth and a lie, both of which God had wisely kept from them. He told them a truth that if they ate of the tree they should become as Gods, knowing good and evil. He told them a lie, saying, "ye shall not sure ly die." It would be hard to tell which had the greatest influence toward leading them into trouble, the truth or the lie; in fact, the one seems to be 'as bad as the other. There is one kind of gossip to-day that reminds one of the granger's way of doing business. With these people the article is brought directly from the manufacturer to the consumer. This was :he devil's plan in his second statement to Eve. These people manufacture their own stories and bring them to you. Their, workshop is their imagination; the only implement needed is a sharp tongue the material up on which they work is the reputation of a neighbor. These people have ihe knack of keeping up a lively trade; the supply is always equal to the demand, and human nature makes a great demand in this direc tion, hence the tale bearer keeps his man ufactory so busy and Ins stock so large that really giving doth no: impoverish him. The gossip venders are not at all exhorbitant in charges; the only pay they ask is your appreciation, and sometimes they are willing to do a trust business at that. Then there are gossipers who act the part of middlemen entirely. They take about the same positions in the gossip trade that the ordinary saloon-keepers who can buy a gallon and a half of tad whisky and sell from it a barrel of good. The persons who make a business of repeating those things which they know to be false, are no better than those who originate them. Interior. CLASS OF THE 4TH YEAR. Will please meet promptly at half past 9 o clock, a. m., Tuesday before Conference. Punctuality in meeting engagements clears the zvay to success. E. A. Yates, Ch'n. 1 . NOTICE TO OKI EGATES. Alternates who e :pect :o ba piesent at Conference, 7 lace of r nvflal.i, will do me a favor by sending ire their names. Please state whose place you take and your District, E. A. Yates.'
North Carolina Christian Advocate (Greensboro, N.C.)
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Nov. 1, 1882, edition 1
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