Some of them could not teach acceptably a Sunday school class, but they have experienced the saving grace of God, and they know how to tell to an individual what a Saviour they have found. For rapid church growth the great need of pulpit and pew is the enthusiastic fishing spirit. Some time ago I heard a deacon at a banquet describing a twenty-five dollar rod which a friend had given him, and in his account of a certain fishing experience he became extravagant in language and gesture. He declared that a seven pound bass at the end of a good rod was a mixture of music, poetry and oratory, a sort of combination of Beethoven, Shakespeare and Demosthenes. A cold-blooded listener who has nothing of the fishing spirit would have considered this deacon half insane, but a man with a true fishing spirit could enter into his enthusiasm. Indeed, several of us forgot to eat while we listened to his graphic description. As I left the banquet I said to myself: "Oh, that I and all my church had this enthusiasm for fishing for men!" It is the greatest joy on earth. The consciousness that God has used you to win a soul from sin to salvation, from death to life, is a foretaste of heaven. We may be excused if we are covetous of this kind of joy, and have the enthusiastic spirit of the chase in our efforts to reach men and win them to God. How to Preserve Unity in Offerings. BY REV. F. W. LOCKWOOD. [We earnestly commend to the consideration of pastors, officers of young people's societies, superintendents of Sunday schools and church committees on benevolence, the article by Rev. F. W. Lockwood, of Sing Sing, upon their methods of beneficence in the Church, young people's society and Sunday school., This appears to be an ideal plan. If anybody has a better plan we shall be glad to publish it. —ED. MONTHLY.] Special anxieties have been created by young people's societies of various names. They have been charged with dividing the forces of the church, especially in gifts. "A certain amount has been raised by the young people of Baptist church;" so runs the report. Indeed, in the "Contributions for September, 1900," from New York State, the HOME MISSION MONTHLY reports gifts from two Baptist Young People's Unions, six Sunday schools, two Young People's Society Christian Endeavor, etc., apart from offerings by the church as a body. Such separate gifts tend to divide the church in its efforts instead of unifying it. In a recent State meeting vigorous protests were made against the place of organizations in the church. Young people's organizations came in for a liberal share in illustration. Some on the floor went so far as to disapprove of the organization in toto. Their sense of danger was real, but we have penned this item to suggest a better remedy than death for such a worthy branch of the body of Christ. Keep it as a branch and not as a separate body, and its usefulness will be retained and its harm prevented. How We Do it, No advice is so valuable as that from one who has done the thing he advises. Pardon the presumption ! Our offerings for home missions will be taken November 25, 1900. On that day the church makes its offering. A large number of those present are members of the Young People's Union. These mark their envelopes with the initials of the Union. A record of amount in such envelopes is kept for the books of the Union. The whole offering is put into the hands of the church treasurer. The young people have been taking up a missionary offering at each monthly roll call. At their next business meeting they will vote a part of the amount on hand to the church treasurer to swell this common fund. The Sunday School. On the 25th the Sunday school will vote a percentage of its missionary funds to the treasurer of the church for the same object. Classes in the school have been systematically bringing their gifts for missions each Sunday in addition to Sunday-school gifts. They have, as a class, been saving together, instead of saving as individuals. One class of about six members will vote $15 to be put into the plate as it is passed on the 25th, for the church's offering for home missions. The Sunday school and Young People keep their records as stimulus and inspiration, but they all give to the common treasury for home missions, and you "at the Rooms" will receive the entire offering as from "The First Baptist Church" of Sing Sing. We have not been able to unite the Ladies Missionary Society fund with the offering of the church, for the simple reason that the great parent organizations are not united in their work or treasury. Some Necessities. We seek to We find it necessary to put into the waste basket all "special appeals" made to young people or Sunday school. These special appeals come sometimes from high officials, and are helping to separate what we are striving to keep a unity. We aim to treat State Convention appeals for special building funds, Foreign Mission appeals for an educational institution, and Home Mission appeals for Cuba, etc., by the same rule. unify our offerings and make it our church offering; and we expect you, as our officers, to cause it to take the wisest course for the socalled "regular" work or "specialties "as your best judgment and wider experience dictate. In this way we endeavor to help solve that great question of "specifics" so ably and sweetly stated by Dr. Mabie in the Missionary Magazine of September, 1900, and we do ourselves the service of keeping our church a unit. Sing Sing, N. Y., November 19, 1900. Christian Schools: Their Mission. "I do not contend that our schools for higher learning shall be turned into an endless prayermeeting or that they shall become theological seminaries for the exposition and propagation of Baptist tenets, although they might be engaged in a worse service than that. I do contend that the spirit which is imperial in the work of the Church shall also be imperial in the work of her schools." N. E. WOOD, D D. "We are encouraged by past achievements. There was a time when New England college life seemed deluged with unbelief. The persistent efforts of believing men brought out many institutions from the shadow of eclipse of faith. We cannot believe that the seats of learning, established in the faith of our fathers, shall become fountains of poison. The colleges belong to Christ, the Light of the world. We must win and hold them for our Lord. National issues and eternal destinies hang upon the event of this contest." C. R. HENDERSON, D D. "Let us, only in establishing and maintaining these schools, make the idea of Christ the supreme and regulative idea of their existence; for they have claims upon us as Christians only as they are centers and disseminators of Christian learning. "The interests of Christ and of the truth, then, are identical. Religion and education go hand in hand. If I trace back the smallest ray of truth, I find it leads me to Christ, the uncreated Sun, from whom all the light of truth ultimately proceeds. If I study the diatom or the star, I find knowledge widening out before me into the infinite, and I come face to face with God. If the undevout astronomer is mad, the teacher who knows not God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, is yet more irrational and unfit for his vocation. I have interest in education, because I have interest in Christ." A. H. STRONG, D. D. The Religious Value of Our Schools for the Colored People. BY PRES'T P. B. GUERNSEY, A.M., NASHVILLE, TENN. Nowhere, perhaps, is the denominational value of our Christian educational institutions more evident than in the case of our Home Mission schools. In the first place, they are more pronounced in their Christian and denominational character. The great schools, like Chicago, Vassar, Brown, Colgate, Rochester, are under Christian, and even denominational control, but they do not put this fact forward conspicuously, and, in some cases, do not allow the fact to exert any appreciable influence on the school and its teachings. The contributions made by these schools to the denomination is only indirect. The schools for the colored people, on the contrary, are distinctly and conspicuously religious, and even denominational. They are advertized as such, and conducted as such. In addition to the daily chapel service--common no doubt to all the institutions under consideration-these mission schools put the Bible into the regular curriculum, and teach it as faithfully as they teach any other subject. To quote from the published catalogue of Roger Williams University: "The Word of God is the highest and best possible instrument of education. God's thoughts kindle men's thoughts. No other book can equal the Bible in stimulating mental activity, or developing character and power. No man ought to be regarded as either well informed or well educated who remains ignorant of the sacred Scriptures. This University aims, moreover, to bring its students to something more than mere intellectual quickening. It hopes to be a fountain of spiritual as well as intellectual life. It undertakes to educate Christian teachers and leaders for the people, leaders trained in conscience, consecrated to God, and deeply imbued with divine truth. It recognizes man's spiritual nature, and reckons this life a probation for the life to come. "For reasons like these, special attention is given to instruction in the sacred Scriptures. Daily classes are established for the study of the Bible. Every student is required to attend one of these classes. No student can graduate from this University ignorant of the Bible, or untrained in conscience, except by deliberately closing his mind and heart against instruction. As a natural result, an evangelistic spirit is encouraged and generally maintained. Services for prayer and missionary meetings are regularly conducted under the auspices of the school, and also by the student organizations. Since I have known this school, hardly a month has passed in which there have not been conversions, those in the past month including some of the best men in the college depart ment. The following letter received a few days ago will explain itself: November 21, 1900. REV. P. B. GUERNSEY, Dear Sir-On receiving a letter from Mary, a few evenings ago, I was more than ordinarily impressed at the news of her having found Christ. I am aware that it took careful, religious direction and persuasion to reach such a glorious conclusion. Therefore I feel obligated to extend profoundest thanks for this great happening. I may be awkward in so doing, but earnest. This illustration strengthens the fact of the Christianizing feature of your school very forcibly to me. I have the strongest reasons to believe that Roger Williams University is doing more towards training and Christianizing colored youths than any other school in the South. Yours for Christ and humanity, Thus these schools are exerting a direct, pronounced, and recognized Christian influence upon the lives of the pupils. In the second place, the circumstances are such that the indirect influence of these schools, exerted through their alumni, is very great. At the present time there is probably no influence equal, in extent at least, to that of the educated Negro teacher and preacher upon his people. They look up to him, accept his advice, and defer to his judgment to an extent that has long since gone out of fashion with their brethren of fairer skin. The knowledge gained within the walls of the college is to many of these teachers and preachers their chief equipment for life and usefulness; the ideals there held up before them are often their chief inspiration and guide. I took, the other day, the list of our alumni of the college department. It contains the names of eighty-two persons. Of these, ten are dead. The distribution of the remaining seventy-two is as follows: Presidents of colleges... 8 16 21 9 6 3 I 1 I I 2 72 This is surely a record of which any school might be justly proud; and when it is understood that many of those classed as presidents, principals and teachers of high-grade schools are in many cases pastors of one or two churches as well, some idea, perhaps, may be gained of the tremendous influence of such a body of trained Christian men, laboring faithfully and successfully for the mental and spiritual upbuilding of their race. A prominent colored man who has traveled extensively through this and other States for many years, and who is particularly conversant with educational matters among his people, said to me the other day: "The question is often raised as to the moral and religious influence of these schools. I have observed the matter carefully, and I have never found a single case where a man found his way into crime and the penitentiary after he had enjoyed one solid year's training in one of these Mission schools." I wondered how many of our great universities could show a like record! The fact is, no man can study closely the character and history of these Home Hission schools without thanking God for their estab lishment, and without reaching the conviction that they must be classed among the choicest of those weapons which are "mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds." Nashville, Tenn., December 8, 1900. Christianity and Character at Shaw University. BY PRES. CHAS. F. MESERVE, RALEIGH, N. C. At one of the sessions of the white Baptist Convention of North Carolina recently held in the city of Raleigh, Dr. Kerfoot, the corresponding secretary of the Southern Baptist Convention, impressed upon his hearers the importance of the white Baptists of the South co-operating in work for the moral and spiritual elevation of the colored people. He stated that this work had been neglected by the South, and that in what they were attempting to do they had no purpose to antagonize the work of the schools for the colored people carried on by the Home Mission Society of the North. He stated, however, that more was needed to be done than the mere work of education. My purpose in calling attention to Dr. Kerfoot's address is to emphasize the fact that educational work is not and never has been considered first in the Home Mission schools for the colored people of the South. The idea at the very beginning of these schools, and it is equally true at the present time, was to give moral and religious instruction, and to make this foremost. The Bible is regarded as the book of all books, and, aside from the ordinary religious instruction of any well-regulated Christian school, it is at Shaw made a text-book, and once a week in the various departments, outside of the schools of law, medicine and pharmacy, regular instruction is given. It is the aim of the faculty of Shaw in all of its chapel services, as well as in the recitationroom work, to put character above scholarship, and Godliness above what is called worldly success. The intellectual side is not by any means neglected, for we find that a very large per cent. of our students are successful in obtaining certificates as teachers, and in passing the various examination boards, both county and State, not only in North Carolina, but in other States. The present year, from the standpoint of Christian life and a pure, clean atmosphere, has impressed me more favorably than at any time in the past. I have been engaged for about a quarter of a century in educational work among the best white youth of the North, among Indian youth of the West, and among colored youth in the South, and I have never met in all of my experience a company of young men and women more quiet and orderly, or of a more earnest purpose than our present student body. There has been a special religious interest since the new school year opened. Revival services were conducted for a week by Rev. B. B. Hill, of Reidsville, a man of wide experience, and who received many years ago a portion of his education at Shaw. There were eighteen conversions, ar.d there was a general quickening of the religious life of the institution. As evidence of the religious spirit and uplifting atmosphere at this institution at the present time, I quote from a letter written me by Rev. Mr. Hill after our special meetings were over, and he had returned to his home: "The atmosphere in and around the University is so healthful! My text at each service all day yesterday was 'Shaw University.' I do not believe there is any institution with so small financial support that can compare in quality of work with the work at Shaw. I lived under the shadow of Oberlin College, Oberlin, O., three years; attended Howard in Washington three years; spent some months in Rochester, N. Y., and was even at the University there. I attended one commencement, and, to my mind, your exercises last spring compared very favorably, and the discipline surpassed either of them. The students are first-class in deportment. I have conducted successful meetings at Oberlin and Painseville, O.; at Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minn., and at several points in North Carolina; but the recent meetings at Shaw were of a purer spiritual order than any before held by me." I call attention to this letter so that the readers of the MONTHLY can understand that, although the Home Mission schools of the South are not put before the public in the daily press or otherwise, as are some institutions, yet there is being done a quiet work of untold value that is telling tremendously for the best good of society and the State. During the sessions of the white Baptist Convention, referred to above, addresses were given in our chapel by several prominent brethren, and quite a number of the delegates visited the institution. They came from all over the State and they invariably told me that Shaw men and women were among the very best people in their respective communities; that when they met Shaw men and women, they found they could be depended upon; that they were quiet, peaceable, and conservators of law and order. The enrollment since the opening of the year is exactly 425, and many have had to be denied admission on account of lack of accommodations. This enrollment does not take into account the night schools, or the Blount Street Industrial School. Benedict College, Columbia, S. C. BY A. C. OSBORN, D.D., PRESIDENT. In point of attendance this is the most prosperous year in the history of the college. The number of students is greater than in any previous year, and the grade of scholarship is higher. There is an earnestness, a devotion to the work, and an enthusiasm in every department that is inspiring. The college is not only uplifting the youth, and fitting them for better and higher service, but men who have been pastors for years are more and more entering the theological department. Last year, besides the large number of young men studying for the ministry, there were thirteen ordained men in the class. There will be still more this year. The college has the confidence, affections, and moral support of practically all of the 150,000 colored Baptists in South Carolina. They commend it by resolutions in their conventions and associations, they send up to it their young people and their ministers, and they contribute in State conventions, district associations, missions, Sunday-school conventions, and churches, for the payment of their students' college bills. A vast majority of the colored people are extremely poor. Most of the students are from very poor families. But those ecclesiastical bodies all over the State raise funds and help to pay the students' bills. It is only by these contributed nickels and dimes that they are able to secure the eagerlycoveted education. The desire for education, and the effort and sacrifice the Negroes are making to secure it, passes belief. As the entire expense of a student in the college is but $7.25 per month for tuition, board, room rent, fuel and lights, and as ordained ministers are charged for the same but $5 per month, a small sum goes a long way. Nevertheless all that is contributed thus, and all that the students can pay, is utterly insufficient to educate those gifted ones who should be educated to be pastors of churches and teachers in the public schools. Letters come to the writer almost every day from those desiring to enter the school, but are without the means to do so. Probably fifty more ministers would enter this winter if means were at hand to pay their college expenses-only $5 a month, or $40 for an entire school year. Possibly the Lord may move the heart of some one of your readers to help give some of these preachers a better fitting for the Lord's service. And, oh, how greatly they need it! Many can scarcely read, and are ignorant of Bible teaching and of fundamental Christian doctrines, and yet are pastors of large churches, and, as such, of controlling influence in their communities. Forty dollars will give a minister a year of schooling, and $2,000 would give to fifty ministers a whole year of instruction in the college, and elevate incalculably their future worth for their people. With the increased attendance and increased usefulness of the college, there come perplexities. We have turned none away, and we do not intend to. We must take care of them in some way. But our accommodations are insufficient. We are crowded. In addition to the double bed, we have put a cot in every dormitory room that has space for a cot; yet some of our men are sleeping three in a bed. We have no other places to put them. They plead for the privileges of the school, and are content to rough it and be crowded; and still they come. Beside city students and those that board in the city, we have 200 boarders. But our dining hall, when full, seats but 144. Moreover, kitchen space and cooking appliances were not planned for the present number. We have had no gifts for enlargements; yet we have begun work upon an enlargement that will double the capacity of dining-room and kitchen. This is to be paid for out of the income of the college at a cost of $1,200. To board 200 students at the prices above given, and save from the income $1,200 for enlargement, will require close financeering. But we have no alternative. It is to be done. Five years ago the Negro Baptists of the State, by act of their State Convention, resolved to raise $12,500 for a greatly-needed |