The American Missionary | Page 4

but some one of
these native mountain pastors. The accompanying illustration gives a
good idea of the mountain church; it is built of logs, and is without
windows; the pulpit is an unpainted board; the seats slabs from the

nearest saw mill, turned flat side up, with pegs driven in for legs. The
ministry is in strict keeping with the church, and intellectually little in
advance of the people. They take pride in the fact that "These yer
home-spun jeans have never brushed no dust from off no college
walls," and exultantly declare that "The Lord taught me how to preach:
and when the Lord teaches a man how to preach, you may just reckon
he don't make no mistakes."
[Illustration: A NATIVE MOUNTAIN CHURCH.]
On every hand, I found indications that the day of isolation for this
people is rapidly passing away. Yankee inquisitiveness has discovered
that these mountains are full of the best coal and iron--Northern capital
has already begun to strip them of their rich forests of black walnut,
oak and pine. The rivers are carrying these logs by the thousands to the
immense mills, which in turn are making the large towns, toward which
already the railroad is hastening.
Engineering skill is bridging streams, crossing valleys, climbing
mountains or piercing them through. On every hand we see the change.
From their long sleep of a century, these valleys, these homes, this
whole people are awakening. A new life is beginning, a new future,
opening.
And as a result of all this, I found a field of missionary work, which for
opportunity and need has perhaps no equal in our country. Amidst all
this change, a people, startled from their long separation, find
themselves suddenly called to face, to compete with, to become a part
of, our life, our intellectual advancement; to move with our energy, and
work with our skill. Realizing their weakness, suddenly roused by their
necessity, they are sending across their valleys and over their
mountains the Macedonian cry, "Come over and help us!" Our duty to
this people, whether we look at it from the standpoint of the Christian
or the citizen, is beyond the measure of words.
Here, as everywhere in the South, I found that the American
Missionary Association, as representative of our Northern Christian
sympathy, was at work. Its normal schools, fitting teachers to go out
and displace the bare-footed, ignorant, snuff-stick-chewing school
mistresses; its churches, fitting mothers and fathers to enter upon their
duties conscious of their responsibility; and its missionaries, bringing in
an intelligent Christian life, and driving the curse of the

country--intemperance--out of the home, community and the county,
are thus meeting the need, and answering the cry, and fulfilling the
obligations. Below is a cut of one of the buildings of the Academy at
Williamsburg, Ky., recently erected among these people.
[Illustration: WILLIAMSBURG ACADEMY, KY.]
I found one worker where the field called for a dozen; one school
where we should have twenty; one church where we should have a
hundred; one scholar received into an over-crowded school house,
when its doors should open to scores. I found one missionary with nine
organized churches on his hands, and he the only pastor; the extremes
of his parish being seventy-five miles apart.
And lastly, on returning to New York, I found an empty, a worse than
empty, a debt-burdened treasury, forbidding all advancement in this
field.
* * * * *
_Anniversary Exercises._
* * * * *
FISK UNIVERSITY, NASHVILLE, TENN.
BY DISTRICT SECRETARY C.J. RYDER.
Fisk University fills a large place in the educational institutions of the
South, and commencement week occupies an important place in the
college year at Fisk.
When the inhuman caste prejudice passes away, the Congregationalists
of the North will discover the encouraging fact that the American
Missionary Association has planted Congregationalism in the South to
stay. Fisk University and other such institutions, filled as they will be
by young men of every class and color, will be strongholds of our New
Testament faith and polity. Such a Commencement as was observed at
Fisk this year does much to bring about that blessed day. This
Commencement week, beginning Thursday, June sixth, and closing the
evening of June twelfth, was crowded with literary and musical
exercises of high order. President E.M. Cravath, D.D., delivered the
baccalaureate sermon, taking for his subject, "Building on the Rock." It
was a sermon of great power. Rev. Dr. Gray, a Southern Episcopal
clergyman, preached the missionary sermon. On Thursday evening,
came "The Senior Preparatory Exhibition." On June seventh, tenth and
eleventh, the various class examinations were held, and in the evening

of Friday the seventh, the anniversary exercises of the Literary
Societies were given. There are three healthy and vigorous societies at
Fisk, and it was difficult to tell