1896.] BARBER MEMORIAL SEMINARY-MARY HOLMES SEMINARY. renders large though indirect help to the very Cause which is deservedly so dear to him. LEGACIES FOR MISSION WORK. The Foreign and Home Mission Boards of our Church are often singled out by themselves for bequests, because from their very nature they prominently represent the essential work of the Church. We all rejoice when God puts it into the hearts of his servants thus to testify to the vital importance of mission work. Now and then there is a third Board added to these two. In a will recently probated, this third bequest was to the Board of Relief. Was this legacy added simply to embrace another Board which in its general work had a peculiar interest for the testatrix? Or was it not perhaps, in addition to this, a further expression of her missionary enthusiasm itself, suggested by her knowledge of the fact that this Board was, in a peculiar sense, a helper of that very work which she had most upon her heart? WOMEN'S AUXILIARY BOARDS. 335 May we not appeal for aid to the women of our Church, organized as "Auxiliaries" for mission work at home and abroad? From them we may surely look for special manifestations of sympathy with the wornout and dependent missionaries who have actively carried on the work to which they themselves give such enthusiastic support. They are not asked to do less in the direct support of the missionary cause, but only to remember what the Board of Relief does to free that cause from any expenditure of mission funds for the support of its disabled workers, while it animates its active workers with fresh vigor, by keeping before them its loving provision for their time of need. Since Ministerial Relief is, in addition to all its other good work, so peculiarly a helper of missions, may we not ask that every friend of missions will be likewise a helper of Ministerial Relief? Our need, now and always, is for just such helpers. FREEDMEN. BARBER MEMORIAL SEMINARY. A commodious and substantial building capable of holding from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty boarders, designed for the education and Christian training of colored girls, is now in process of erection at Anniston, Alabama. The expense of the building when completed and equipped for service will not be far from $40,000; and this expense will be borne entirely by Mrs. Phineas M. Barber, of Philadelphia. Rev. George A. Marr, a brother of Mrs. Barber, is superintending the construction, and expects to have the work completed in time for the opening of the school in the fall. The school is to be under the care and management of the Board of Missions for Freedmen, and is to be conducted on the general plan of the other prosperous institutions under its care, such as Scotia, at Concord, N. C.; Ingleside at Burkeville, Va.; Mary Allen at Crockett, Tex., and Mary Holmes, formerly of Jackson, Miss., but now to be rebuilt this season at West Point, Mississippi. MARY HOLMES SEMINARY. It is expected that the rebuilding of Mary Holmes Seminary, which was burned at Jackson, Miss., a year ago, will be begun early this spring, and, if rapidly pushed forward, be ready for occupancy in the early fall. The plans are substantially agreed upon. The building is to be of brick, and there will be dormitory room for one hundred and fifty boarders. The first estimates of cost were somewhat higher than the amount the Board originally contemplated spending, and exceeded by several thousand dollars the amount now raised for the rebuilding, together with the amount obtained from the insurance companies. The plans have been referred back to the architect to see if certain reductions in cost may not be made without essentially chang ing the plan as a whole. If this can be carried out, the Board is yet hopeful that it may be able to complete the plant, including lighting and heating, for something like $30,000. This new building when completed will be an ornament to the town in which it is located; a credit to the Board under whose auspices it is being rebuilt; and a beautiful and fitting memorial of the sainted servant of Christ whose name it bears. The generosity of the business men of West Point, in giving us the land on which the school is to be located; the cordiality with which they welcome us in coming into. their community; and the interest they take in everything that points towards an early beginning of the work, are all so many assurances of the wisdom of the selection; and make us hope that the seminary in its new field will enter upon even a wider and more prosperous career, than that which it had before the devouring flames so completely destroyed its former beautiful building. TARDY CONTRIBUTIONS. "Better late than never," is an adage the Freedmen's Board willingly assents to, in connection with the contributions from the friends of our work that come flying in from all directions during the month of March and the first fifteen days of April. The present number of the CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD is the last that will reach its readers before our books are closed for this year. Many churches defer their collections until the month of March, and many treasurers of churches, even when the collections are taken earlier, do not send off the amounts given to the different Boards until just before the spring meetings of the presbyteries, when all churches must make up their annual statements for the presbyterial reports to the fast approaching Assembly. In this way we can hardly tell whether some of our friends are going to give us a collection for the year or not, until the very last mail of the very last day of the fiscal year. Do some of the brethren realize what a great suspense this keeps those of us in who about this time are anxiously watching the fluctuations of the treasury thermometer? * 'Tis true, 'tis pity; pity 'tis, 'tis true.-ED. [April, There is no other six weeks in the whole year in which we are on the lookout for more money than from the first of March to the middle of April.† We had, early last June, in making our arrangements, to take into account our probable receipts for these last six weeks. Will the thousands we are looking for come in? All we can say is, "We hope so." When we think of a possible drop in the amount, we devoutly say, "God forbid." When we think of a possible increase, the world looks brighter and the heart feels lighter. Yes, there is a possibility at this late date of having an increase this year over last year in amounts sent in in March and April. Not only may delayed remittances be sent forward, but delayed collections may yet be taken. Better late than never. "COMING NORTH." There is a widespread feeling among many of our workers in the south, that if they could only come north, and with the Board's endorsement, lay the claims of their work before their friends, they would secure all the pecuniary help needed to carry on their work successfully. Some years ago the General Assembly advised the Board against the practice which then prevailed to a much greater extent than it does now, of allowing its workers to come north and present their appeals to individual ministers and churches and other friends of the work. Since then the Board has had a rule that no one holding one of its commissions can leave the field for this purpose without special permission from the Board, and this permission is only granted in what the Board deems extremely exceptional cases. Only two such permits were granted during the last year; while the request for such permits were in a number of other cases kindly but firmly declined. Every time, however, that such a request is declined, the well-known fact comes to our minds that workers in other churches, subject to no such restrictions, do the very thing that our + Withhold not good from him to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbor, Go, and come again, and tomorrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee (Prov. iii. 27, 28). So saith the Scripture.-ED. own men are forbidden to do, and in many cases cover the same territory from which we have barred our own. Men from other churches have canvassed the city of Pittsburgh, and invaded the very office of the Freedmen's Board in quest of contributions to build a church or erect a school-house. An examination of their books has shown that they have not unsuccessfully approached many a Presbyterian giver-whom we, from the best of motives, have been trying to protect from the too frequent solicitations of our own men. All this makes us sometimes wonder if we have acted wisely. But there is another side. A comparison of the total amount that one such solicitor received, with the total expense he had incurred on his travels, showed that it had cost him sixty-seven cents for every dollar he had collected. In these days of nice calculations as to the per cent. of cost of administration of missionary funds, facts like these form a tremendous argument in favor of the economy of the Boards, and of having all friends of the work contribute through the regular channel of the church. It might be that many a man is perfectly willing to spend sixty-seven cents of some other man's dollar, provided he can retain the other thirty-three cents. It costs him nothing, he is a gainer to the full extent of the remainder, and thirty-three per cent. profit is, after all, not a bad business venture. But the rule of the Board is made in order to protect the giver. If indeed it be true, as some say, that the administrative expense of our Board is eight per cent., why here is a clear saving of fifty nine cents on the dollar to every one who gives through the Board instead of yielding to the solicitations of some unauthorized traveling representative of this. needy race, but not always a representative of our own needy work. If men from the south do come with their appeals, the lesson of this monogram is: give, if you would give wisely, only to our own, and to such of our own only as carry with them the endorsement of the Board, that presumably knows better than any one man the comparative pressing needs of any one field. Be also assured that any one carrying with him the official endorsement of the Board, has a case of such exceptional and pressing importance as to justify the waving of all ordinary restrictions. NOTE.-I desire to emphasize the caution above given. Such appeals sometimes come to me in this office. I am glad to be known to all colored people as easily accessible to them, and as having no respect for the prejudice which puts them at any disadvantage on account of their color. But I have learned to refuse such appeals firmly and in good humor. The perfect gentlemanly or ladylike composure and amiable smiles with which such refusal is usually accepted, proves to me that the applicant is an adept in the arts of persuasion, and likely to succeed with just such a person as I was before experience taught me to put my money where I know what will be done with it, and where I know that many times the amount which I can give at all would be wisely used without any addition to the expense of getting it and applying it to the use intended.-H. A. N. -I believe I have grown to the point where I can love a white man as much as a black man. I have grown to the point where I can love a Southern white man as much as a Northern white man. To me "a man is a man for a' that and a' that." As a race I believe that we strengthen ourselves at every point by extending this sympathy, for no race can cherish ill will and hatred toward another race without its losing in all of those elements that tend to create and perpetuate a strong and healthy manhood. I propose that no man shall drag me down by making me hate him.— Booker T. Washington. -Jesus in the picture he drew in his parable of the good Samaritan directed attention to a certain man. No nationality is ascribed to him, no religious belief. He may have been black or red or yellow or white, rich or poor, ignorant or culturedany man. The one fact which Jesus mentioned about him was that he was in trouble, therefore he had the claim of a neighbor on every one who discovered that he needed help. Thus Jesus planted a seed of truth which has destroyed slavery, broken down the barriers between nations, and is melting the walls between classes.-Rev. A. E. Dunning, D.D., in the Congregationalist. CHURCH ERECTION. THE CLOSING YEAR. But one month remains, at the time of this writing, before the fiscal year of the Board will close, and upon the receipts of that month hangs the question whether the appropriations already promised from the General Fund of the Board can be met by the contributions of the churches. Up to the present time there have been received by the Board since April 1, 1895, 150 applications for appropriations from the General Fund, aggregating $85,622, and the amount will doubtless, before the end of the year, reach $100,000 dollars. There have been also received forty-seven applications for loans from the Manse Fund, aggregating $21,105, and twenty applications for loans from the Loan Fund, aggregating $80,600. It has been impossible for the Board to meet all these demands, and a number, more especially those for loans, have been postponed or declined. The Board, however, feels always more anxious in regard to its ability to respond to the first class of appeals, those for grants to our feeble home missionary churches. Stronger churches asking for loans, while often inconvenienced by refusal, can usually make shift to provide temporarily for their needs either by borrowing elsewhere. or increasing their subscriptions, but there are every year organized in our new States scores of churches whose life or death practically depends upon the assistance they receive from this Board. They are without church homes, and -Instrumental music is a coördinate part of the worship. The house of God is a place of rest and renewing. The worshiper enters with the marks of the week's toil yet on his soul. It is the duty of the opening organ music to prepare him for that which follows. A little later it voices the praise that grows strong within him, supports the pastor, strengthens the impression of the sermon and dismisses the encouraged Christian with a benediction on his new resolves. Disguised music of the ballroom and all adaptations from operas, however de338 unable to procure them excepting as aided from abroad, while to continue houseless means the speedy scattering of the little flock. It is in behalf of these little ones of our Presbyterian family, that in these closing days of the year we plead with the churches that as yet have sent no contributions to the Board, that they will not let the year end without doing their share in the work of church extension. Let no one who reads this think it too late to take part in the work of the year. This number of the magazine will doubtless, like its predecessors, be in the hands of pastors and subscribers before the last Sunday in March. As a matter of fact a large percentage of receipts from church collections, sometimes even twenty per cent., comes to the Board during the last four weeks of its fiscal year. Moreover, in order to allow time for contributions made upon the last Sabbath of the year, and for those that come from a distance, the Treasurer does not close his accounts finally until the 10th of April. Thus there is still time to make good any inadvertent omission in this matter, and also for churches which, contributing under the plan of systematic beneficence, have not yet forwarded their gifts, to remit the same to our Treasurer, Mr. Campbell. It may be added that even if the receipts of the Board should not exceed those of last year, an increase in the number of contributing churches would, as a proof of growing interest, greatly encourage it in its work. votional in character, are on account of association an incongruous color in the garment of praise. A congregation, critical in the best sense, will not approve organ-playing for mere technical display more than it will countenance preaching for rhetorical effect. The model organist chooses his music for each sermon, has religious sympathy to interpret the pastor's purpose, and if he has the power to improvise uses it in strengthening the impressions of the hour.-Henry A. Merrill in North and West. EDUCATION. FACULTY OF PRINCETON SEMINARY. G. T. Purves, J. D. Davis, G. Vos, B. B. Warfield, W. B. Greene, Jr., J. H. Dulles, H. W. Smith, F. L. Patton, W. M. Paxton, C. Martin, W. H. Green, J. De Witt. FIFTY YEARS A TEACHER. The friends of theological education will doubtless take a deep interest in the celebration to be held at Princeton on the fifth of May next. It will then be fifty years since Prof. W. Henry Green, at that time a youth of twenty-one years, began his remarkable career as a teacher in the theological seminary in that place. He was graduated at Lafayette College in 1840, and served several years as tutor and teacher of mathematics in the same institution. He gave two years of labor to the Second Church, Princeton, as its stated supply; received ordination from the Presbytery of New Brunswick, May 24, 1848; was pastor of the Central Church, Philadelphia, from 1849 until 1851, and then entered upon his duties as professor of Biblical and Oriental Literature in the theological seminary in Princeton. In 1859, the title of his chair was changed, and he was made professor of Oriental and Old Testament Literature. With what distinguished ability and success he has discharged the duties of this position will be made abundantly clear when his many friends gather at the seminary to wish him well and to do him honor. THE INVITED SPEAKERS. The death of that distinguished divine, Dr. Talbot W. Chambers, of New York, makes a vacancy in the list which it is not easy to fill. easy to fill. Although a clergyman of the Reformed Church in America, Dr. Chambers has held close relations with Princeton Seminary, having taken the middle year there when a student, and having served as acting professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis during the season of 189192, after the death of Dr. C. Wistar Hodge. |