The American Missionary | Page 5

to the other nine, the many look for
suggestion and advice in important matters. He is an uncrowned king in
his sphere.
This being true, I repeat that not to make proper provision for the high
education of the talented tenth man of the colored people is a
prodigious mistake. It is to dwarf the tree that has in it the potency of a
grand oak. Industrial education is good for the nine; the common
English branches are good for the nine; but that tenth man ought to
have the best opportunities for making the most of himself for
humanity and God.
The powers of this talented tenth man are often latent; unsuspected by
others and even by their possessor, and are evoked only under
favorable conditions, sometimes comparatively late in the youthful
period of life. In a symmetrical course of study calculated to bring into
exercise every mental faculty, somewhere, as by a touchstone, the
particular aptitude of the pupil may be discovered, the secret springs of
power be opened; and the man, having discovered himself, leaps
forward to pre-eminence among his fellows. Scores of such men and
women are among the students in the schools for the colored people of
the South. A mere common education will not disclose their

uncommon powers; they need the test of the best. And somewhere, at
several central points at least, provision should be made for the higher
education of the talented tenth as well as ordinary education for the
other nine.
The great need of the colored people of the South is wise leadership
along all lines of development; men of large and comprehensive views
acquired by contact and communion with the world's great thinkers;
such men are needed to-day even more than nine times as many with a
little more practical knowledge concerning the use of the saw, the
jack-plane and the blacksmith's forge. In our educational work for the
colored people, therefore, proper provision should be made for the
talented tenth.--DR. MOREHOUSE in The Independent.

ALASKA MISSION.
The following sentences from a personal letter of Miss Anna L. Dawes
state a profound truth in terse and impressive form:
"If any one is willing to go up there and live with those Eskimos, I
think the rest of us may well enough agree to help. Indeed, nothing has
been so good for me for some time as his (Mr. Lopp's) visit. It not only
makes our Christianity (mine at least) look like a mustard seed, but
makes you wonder whether it isn't a dead seed at that! I have been to
hear Mr. Moody to-day, but he didn't begin to give me such "conviction
of sin" as the urgent and eager interest Mr. Lopp showed in going back
to his people up there. I wonder just what the Lord does think of us
all--some of us, anyway?"
Mr. Lopp, whom Miss Dawes refers to, is pleading for funds to make it
possible to open the mission among the Eskimos. The American
Missionary Association was obliged to discontinue it for a year on
account of the straitened condition of the treasury. We are now making
every effort to gather funds outside of the current income of the
Association, that there may be at least one Christian mission conducted
by Congregationalists in this great northern mission field. Mr. Lopp's

plea for "his people" and abandon of self-sacrifice both on the part of
himself and his wife, impress every one, as they did Miss Dawes.
This is the only mission of the Congregational denomination in Alaska.
No other denomination plans to occupy this station if given up by the
American Missionary Association. The work requires about five
hundred dollars more than has been subscribed, and this must be in
hand by the first of June, when it is necessary for Mr. Lopp to sail, if he
goes this year.

THE SOUTH.

HISTORY OF A CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
BY REV. SPENCER SNELL.
The beautiful and healthful city of Talladega is located among the
Appalachian foot hills. The First Congregational church was organized
in the year 1868. The first members were people who came out of the
colored Baptist Church, and who had begun to look for a more
intelligent mode of worship and better religious instruction than it was
possible to have in churches whose pastors had been slaves and were
uneducated.
The first pastor of the church was Rev. H. E. Brown, of Ridgefield, O.,
whom the American Missionary Association had sent into the South.
Since his retirement the pulpit has been occupied by several pastors,
including the acceptable services of professors of Talladega College.
My pastorate began in 1894.
There are friendly relations between our church and the other colored
churches near at hand. The pastor is often invited to preach