poor?

JUBILEE SHARE FUND.

It will be seen in the record of this month that the Jubilee Share Fund now aggregates pledges of over $14,000. This is a beginning, a good beginning, but a beginning only. We hope these coming September days which close our fiscal year will bring a vast increase of pledges to the Jubilee Share Fund. We know that numbers of our friends have been planning for it and looking forward to taking their part in this great and useful Christian service. "Now is the accepted time."

From Massachusetts—"Please find inclosed check for $50 for the Jubilee Year Fund, in memory of my dear father. His heart was ever with your good work to the very end of his life."

From a Tennessee A. M. A. Missionary—"Wife and I join the Jubilee contributors. Find $50 for one share. We wish we could multiply this by a hundred."

From Massachusetts—"Please find from two friends in Boston $50 each, which has been intrusted to my care for the share fund; and I gladly send it to help on the share fund."

From Connecticut—"It gives me pleasure to send you $2,000, as a donation from our church to the American Missionary Association. Also inclosed $785 as our annual contribution for the current expenses of the Association, not for the debt."

From Iowa—"Inclosed find $18, my donation to the work of the American Missionary Association. It is probably my last donation as my age (past fourscore) and poor health warn me my time is short in which to serve the Lord in this world."

From Connecticut—"I was not home last Sunday when the annual contribution for the American Missionary Association was taken up, and as I do not wish to miss having a little share in the good work of your society I will inclose my check for $10 for the work."

From New Jersey—"I am glad to be able to send the inclosed amount from the Presbyterian Sunday-school of this place. For several years we have been giving to the work of the American Missionary Association, and each year is an advance on the previous year in amount. May you all be abundantly blessed in your spiritual as well as your financial welfare."

From Massachusetts—"Inclosed find $5, which my sister before her death desired me to send to the cause she labored for so many years, and which was dear to her when her heavenly Father called her home."

From Ohio, inclosing $5—"It is a pleasure to be able to carry out the wish of my dear husband. Ever since the organization of the American Missionary Association we have been small contributors, though Baptists. God bless and support your work."

The South.

A NEGRO UPON SELF-HELP AND SELF-SUPPORT.

One reason why the question of self-help as it relates to the Negro is so difficult of solution, is his previous condition of slavery.

Slavery was first and last selfish. The training received by the Negro under forced labor had no ethical meaning. The Negro labored, but was not taught the dignity of labor; he did not find any dignity in it. If there was any, his masters would have labored as he did, but the Negro served as the cat's paws to get the nuts from the fire. The fire burnt him severely, but he had not the benefit of the nuts. Thus the moral and ethical benefit which he might have received from labor was lost. Let our moralists ponder over this. The Negro's masters did not believe in self-support during slavery; they were supported. Now that his freedom is secured, the Negro also would like to have and hold as the masters did.

The result of this forced selfish labor may be briefly summed up thus. The Negro by training and example became prejudiced against severe struggle and toil, physical or intellectual. He is now distrustful of attempts made to induce him to labor. He is willing to let somebody else do the work while he reaps the benefit, just as his masters did during slavery. Thus slavery became a foe to true Christian manliness, self-respect, and faith in one's self and others. It took 200 years to force these traits into the Negro's being. It was destructive of all that is uplifting to his soul. There is now a reaction going on. Unless the forces of the Christian schools and churches are applied with energy, the work of construction will not soon overcome that of 200 years of destruction.

Foremost in the education of the Negro along the line of self-support is the American Missionary Association. That the policy of the Association regarding self-help is not theoretical, but practical, may be seen in the statement of Rev. Dr. Beard concerning the work in the South, before the National Council for 1895. He says: "We are realizing also that the independent methods of Congregational polity develop self-help. These churches each year are bearing a larger part of their own support. When it is remembered that formerly their preachers were seldom paid anything, it can be understood that this new way of church life is full of meaning."

The Association states in emphatic and unequivocal language its belief, founded on long experience, in an indigenous ministry. As Dr. Beard says: "Our general policy has been to prepare the race to save the race. This is based upon the conviction that in the long run, and in the large view, the most effective way to lift up the masses is to do what we can to help the relatively few to climb into higher intellectual and moral power."

One means toward the solution of this problem of self-help is the industrial solution. Many overlook it because they think the Negro has already had much of it in his past history. But the Negro has never had the best of it. His industrial training before the war was immoral as well as unscientific. The industrial education of the Negro then was carried on without mental and moral culture; now the head, the hands, and the heart are the triplets which must control his development. Before the war he was simply a machine in industry; now he is to be trained as a living soul. Before the war he had some restraint through industrial work, but it was physical, not moral. The education which the coming twentieth century requires of the Negro through industry will be imperfect unless it shall be permeated with the best and purest of ideals. It is also a recognition of the fact that man is more than a physical creature; he is a combination of the physical and the spiritual. It must be two natures working in harmony with each other's development.

The modern industrialism is a combination of preaching and practice. It has in it a larger conception of God's Kingdom as seen in the world of matter. If it is not the highest conception, it is not the lowest, and should not be despised in the education of a race just emerging from ignorance. One has only to see the Negro in the plantations of the South, and observe his methods of work, to be convinced of the necessity of industrial training as a means toward self-help. Look throughout these farming districts and you will see houses fit for pigs to dwell in rather than men; you will eat food the mode of preparation of which is unworthy of a human being; you will see women in laundry work who have never seen a washing-machine all their life; and gradually the idea will flash into your mind that industrial training is needed.

The question may be asked, What is the American Missionary Association doing along these lines of self-help and independence? Much has been done, and is being done. The Association has not said much, but it is doing much. This is better than saying much and doing little. At the present time, when much is said about the industrial development of the