American Missionary | Page 9

educated, spiritual, or even moral ministry,
without a weekly Sabbath religious service of any kind, or any of the

institutions of the gospel which really elevate them. They have a
religion which is not a pure Christianity and which does not even
involve morality.
The Christian work, lately introduced and already done among them,
demonstrates that they are capable of a rapid and radical change, when
once the vivifying touch of the gospel has reached their hearts.
Instead of twenty Congregational churches among them, there is room
for a thousand, and instead of nine Christian schools, if there were
twenty-five normal schools, it would be only one to each hundred
thousand people; and if there were a hundred common schools, there
would be one to each three or four counties for models. There should
be one good college. If there were Congregational churches in this
region in the same proportion as in New England there would be a full
thousand. If they were in the same proportion as Connecticut, there
would be twelve hundred churches; as New Hampshire, thirteen
hundred; as Vermont, sixteen hundred.
Congregationalism goes to these people as the representative of pure,
intelligent and progressive Christianity. We can gather them into
schools, Sunday-schools and churches, anywhere where we can put a
Christian worker. Our only limit is consecrated workers and the support
for them. The field is as ripe this very day for a thousand as for a score.
But the school and the church must go together.
This is one of the richest of the mineral regions of the world. Great
forests of black walnut, poplar, and other valuable timber, are awaiting
the woodman's ax and the lumberman's mill. Railroads are either built,
building or planned for every part to carry away its wonderful natural
resources. The people are poor, but the land is rich, and a few years
hence will see wealth in the place of poverty, in the hands of either the
natives, or those who will have displaced them. All the motives which
urge the establishment of the church and the school for the incoming
population of the West, press us to build them in this great empire of
the South; and they become doubly imperative when we take into
account the fact that a population of between two and three millions is
already in the land and needs to be saved now. The motives for home
and foreign missions are thus combined, and impelling us for Christ's
sake, for humanity's sake, and for our country's sake, to give the gospel
to this people.

We are not building pauper institutions in this mountain country to be
forever a dead weight for the Northern churches to carry, but
institutions which will very speedily take care of themselves, and give
to others as they have received.
This is a portion of the South where slavery scarcely existed. When war
came, it was loyal to the Union almost to a man. This fact shows that
they have a natural affiliation with "Northern ideas." The caste spirit is
among them--as it is indeed in the North to some extent--but it much
more readily yields to reason and loving teaching than in other portions
of the South. Vigorous and extensive missionary work can and will
mould the ideas and sentiments of this whole region, and thus establish
no-caste churches and schools, where they would demonstrate to the
South that they do not carry with them social disorder and every baleful
influence.
Amid the success, joy and hopefulness of the year's work, came the
affliction of the shooting of Prof. George Lawrence, while about his
duties in our school in Jellico, Tenn. It was the work of a miserable
creature whose brain was fired with whiskey, and who was urged on by
the saloon element as a retaliation for earnest temperance work. After
long and anxious weeks of intense suffering, a brave fight against death
proved successful, and we now hope that our missionary's life is spared
for many years of usefulness. Nearly a hundred men have been shot
already in this one place, and the place itself is not more than six years
old. Is it strange that these mountain people who have a glimpse of
better things, are appealing to us every week of the year to plant
institutions among them? Is it not the voice of Christ clearly
commanding us to possess and subdue this land, and to transform it
into a part of his peaceful and beneficent Kingdom, which shall join
hands with us to pass on the torch of Christ to others yet in darkness?
THE INDIANS.
The people of America are determined to press the Indian problem to a
speedy solution. Provision has been made for giving lands in severalty,
and the next great movement should