The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 04, April, 1889 by Various
page 33 of 109 (30%)
page 33 of 109 (30%)
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and his followers, the same Legislature of Georgia has recently added
two million dollars to the school fund of the State. The efforts of such brave and fearless leaders as Rev. Dr. Haygood, Rev. Dr. Curry, Hon. Walter B. Hill and others have not been in vain, and the good results of the A.M.A. work have commanded respect and even wonder from its bitterest opponents, whose number and zeal decreases. Wisdom and discretion in future will rapidly increase its friends. 3.--I could say much more concerning the colored work, in which (at Macon, Georgia) I spent eight and a half of the happiest years of my life. That branch of work needs to be sustained and extended for years to come. Having now been for eighteen months in the mountain white department of work, and having visited nearly all its most important posts, I am prepared to say that this, also, is a most needy part of the great missionary work which this Society has undertaken. Here are nearly two millions of people, scattered here and there over this great Cumberland Plateau, who because of their inaccessibility, their poverty and indifference, have been largely passed by until recently. The great tides of missionary effort have swirled and risen to the east, the south and the west, but have reached only a little way up into the caves and valleys of this great island plateau, which towers a thousand feet above the surrounding country. The inevitable effects of isolation, of intermarriage, of stagnation and neglect in mental and spiritual matters, has brought about a condition of things which calls for the aid and sympathy of all good Samaritans. They have not suffered in the same way as the colored race, from the former oppression and contagious vices of a superior race; but left alone in their mountain fastnesses, left behind in the march of human progress, they have been a nation of Robinson Crusoes, deteriorating and retrograding from the inevitable nature of mankind when left to itself. Having no momentum from outside, |
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