The American Missionary | Page 8

formal law or by an unwritten but
self-enforcing edict, men are excluded because God made them black,
is to deny one of the fundamental tenets of Christ: All ye are brethren.
It is to introduce into a church already divided by sectarian strifes a
new division. It is to rend afresh the seamless robe. To say to any man
asking for Christian fellowship on the simple ground of faith in Christ,
"Stand back: for I am whiter than thou," is simply a new and
indefensible form of Pharisaism. The church exists to proclaim certain
truths, among which the brotherhood of man stands pre-eminent. It is
difficult to see with what consistency a Christian minister can preach
on the parable of the Good Samaritan if his church refuses to recognize
a Christian brother in one of another race because he belongs to another
race. There is no reason for an attempt to corral all men of all races in
one inclosure; but for any church, especially for a church of the
Puritans, to enter upon missionary work in the South, and initiate it by
refusing to admit to its fellowship a black man because he is black, is to
apostatize from the faith in order to get a chance to preach the faith. To
assert equality and brotherhood at the polls, to reaffirm it in a public
school system, to reassert it by courts of law in the hotel and the
railroad train, and then deny it in the church, would be indeed a
singular incongruity, and would make the Nation more Christian than
the church.
The principle, then, by which the color-line question is to be settled is
very simple, though its application may in some cases present some
difficulties. The whites and Negroes are not to be coerced or bribed into
uniting in one and the same church organizations. If they prefer to
worship and to work separately, they must be allowed so to do. This is
within their Christian liberty. But it is not within their Christian liberty
to refuse the fullest and most perfect Christian fellowship to each other.

The doors of every Christian church must stand wide open to men of
every race and color. The only reason of exclusion must be in moral or
spiritual character. And in the higher representative bodies these
churches must be one. To organize, for example, in the State of Georgia
two Congregational bodies, one white and the other colored, would be
to organize a church to perpetuate divisions which the church should
aim to obliterate. It were far better that the Northern Church should not
go with its missionary work into the South at all, than that it should go
with a mission which strengthens the infidelity that denies that God
made of one blood all the nations of the earth for to dwell together.
* * * * *
THE SOUTH.
* * * * *
MOUNTAIN WORK IN TENNESSEE.
BY DISTRICT SECRETARY C.W. HIATT.
I have found the man of iron. In one short day, he travelled one
hundred miles by rail, walked twelve miles over a steep and rocky
mountain, rode fourteen miles horseback through a pouring and
drenching rain, and at nightfall preached an earnest, telling sermon to
an audience of railroad employees, besides performing the duties of
organist and janitor. The next morning he was up at four o'clock and
away for other tasks of similar sort. One who watches Brother Pope,
must do it on the run. One of the fairest spots on the Cumberland
Plateau is Grand View. Here the American Missionary Association
holds a strategic position. The wild, magnificent scenery and the cool,
bracing air, tingling with ozone, make it an ideal spot for a great
religious and educational centre. Already eyes are turning upward from
the surrounding valleys to this mountain school. The first words I heard
on landing at Spring City, six miles away, were in its praise: "They've
got a mighty good school up thar." Such is the fact. What is needed
now to balance things is a "mighty good school" building. If the
insignificant frame structures which are hidden among the trees, and
only half supply the needs of the institution, could be exchanged for a
good, roomy, handsome edifice, placed on the summit of the mountain,
where it would be visible for miles along the line of the Cincinnati
Southern Railroad, besides being a benefaction to the cause, it would
be the best, cheapest and most attractive advertisement of our mountain

work, conceivable. It is to be hoped that someone will visit this
beautiful spot ere long whose enthusiasm will not all run to words.
Within easy reach of Grand View are various churches flanked by their
educational departments, which will one day become tributary to the
great