The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1873-10-30
The Mission Field of the South.
During the recent session of the Evangeli

The Mission Field of the South.
During the recent session of the Evangelical
Alliance in the city Of New York, the Rev.
DR.. Hoge, of Richmond, read paper on the
"Mission Field of the South" which was lis
tened to with great interest From the full
and excellent report published in the New
York Tribune, and which is too long for pub
lication in our columns, we extract some high
ly interesting passages, which constitute an
able defence of the Christian civilization OF
the South. DR.. Hoge said:
In Virginia we have the advantage of an
institution which is in effect q normal school
to all other educational institutions. The
University of Virginia was the first in the
land organized on system which made it the
true elimination of the primary school, the
academy, and the college, above them all in
its standards, yet drawing them all upward by
degrees to an approximation with itself by
furnishing them with the proper ideal; and
by supplying them with teachers and professors
competent to apply the true principles of in
struction. Lest l should seem to speak too
warmly of our University with its elective
of applied science-and professors better known,
perhaps, in Europe than nearer home, may
say that distinguished scholar Of Great
Britain who recently visited this country to
study its educational systems, in his published
estimate of our University, gives it rank
higher than have done, and says some OF its
methods of instruction, long familiar there,
are Just beginning to be introduced into the
best institutions abroad And now that Vir-
ginia, too long content with fostering her higher
schools, has taken up in earnest the education
of the masses, it is easy TO see what an impulse
will be given to the cause by such teachers as
the University is sending out, and by the ele-
vated standard which it presents to all institu-
tions of inferior grade.
But more important than the removal
of ignorance is the removal of spiritual
blindness and it is with Christian as with
heathen countries that, though the teacher
and the preacher may go together, it is the
Gospel after all which is the power of God
to the salvation of men.
Having spoken of obstacles, may now en-
umerate some facilities to the progress of the
Gospel in the Southern field. One is, that
the people of the South are the most homoge-
nous on the continent. AS yet the foreign ele-
ment is comparatively small, and the continen-
tai forms of unbelief do not prevail among
them. Speaking the same language, with
common traditions and sympathies binding
them together, Of course the religious teacher
obtains reader access to them than where diff
ferent races, tongues, and creeds are elements
of disintegration in society.
Again Our native population is not restless.
1t clings to the old ancestral home; it also
cleaves to ancestral religious faith. 1t not only
abides by the soil in which the dust of noble
forefathers is mingled, it is loyal to the creeds
associated with the memories of pious parents.
The novel and specious forms of error, which
elsewhere have obliterated the old landmarks,
find no welcome among them. The irreligion
of the South is rather the irreligion Of reck-
lessness, of ignorance, of passion, than of inf
deity or of crystalized forms OF unbelct.
There are many communities in this land
crusted over are they and incased by formulat-
ed systems Of impicty. But nc neighborhood
in the South is inaccessible because of en-
trenched infdelity. Scepticalisms, which
spread like epidemics in some quarters, were
never popular there. And least of all are our
people infected by the scientific sceptical phil
osophy of the day, which asserts such an un-
varying uniformity in the operation of physi-
cal law as to leave no place in the universe of
God for the supernatural, and therefore denies
miracle, dscredits prophecy, and silences
prayer. 1t follows, therefore, that when the
Christian teacher comes among US he does not
have the double task of first storming some out
work of infdelity before he attacks the central
citadel of natural aversion to evangelical truth,
and this greatly facilitates his labors among
our people.
I am tempted to enter into these details
about Southern characteristics because there is
perhaps no part of the world so little under
stood-no people about whom so many erro-
neous impressions prevail. We have few op-
portunities for correcting them. Our news
papers are for the most part provincial. Dis
tingushcd foreigners visiting the United States
find more to interest them north of the Poto-
mac and seldom derive their information of
the South from personal observation. If we
sought for yindication however, we would find
it in an impartial and official source, bearing a
testimony to the Christian civilization so en-
phatic as to be worth reproducing.
One of the tables of the United States Cen
sus Report gives the statistics of pauperism
and crime in all the States of the Union. Free
dom from both of these evils unquestionably
indicates a healthful and elevated civilization.
The Southern States stand highest in the list
in these respects I contrast the statements
made in the census report in regard to pauper-
ism and crime in the New England States and
in the Southern States, not for the purpose of
making an invidious comparison, which I have
no desire to do, but because tho New England
States are generally spoken of as distinguished
for thrifty industry and high moral character. =.
l. Pauperism prevails in the New England
States in the proportion of forty-four to every
10000 of the entire population. 2. In the
native New England population the ratio is
forty-seven to every 10000. In the entire
white population Of the South, native and
foreign, the ratio is only fourteen to 10000: 2;
In the foreign population of the New England
States the ratio of pauperism is thirty-fvc to
every 10000. Among the colorcd people of
the Southern States the ratio is thirteen to
every 10000.
1. In the United States census tables of