The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-02-24
AMERICAN MISSION ARIES
THEIR WORN DESCRIBED BY DIR.
A. f. BEARD.
Tells of Church Agitation During SIave-
ry Times-The American Missionary
AssOciation-Great Results Accom-
pIished.

AssocfatiOn-Cre Results Accom-
pIished.
DIR. A. r. Beard, secretary of the
American Missionary association, adj
dressed the Yale divinity students on
the missionary work of America at
Marquand chapel yesterday afternoon.
His address was most interesting and
was listened to with much pleasure by
some of the members of the faculty
and President Dwight, who were pres
emit, DIR. Beard being member of the
Yale corporation and q graduate of the
class Of 81. His remarks were in part
as follows:
There was no study of missions in
the theological seminary which l knew
Ancient church history, there was, and
not too much Of it-for in the ministry
it is principle study. OF modern
church history we had none. We went
forth to find out by our wits-such as
we had-what our churches were doing
in missions, why the societies We're or
Eanizcd as they were, how they were
working and how they were worked,
and what were their relations to the
churches and to each other.
AS those who are to present and rep
resent the missions recognized by the
churches you have right to ask how
they came to exist in their present cor
porate form, and if the reasons which
brought them into being obtain now;
what are their methods within and
without and the reasons for them, in
short what are the Qualifications of
their life.
The churches to which you will min
lister have their reasons for existence in
three-fold purpose. The first purpose
is to collect the faith, The minister's
first call is to bring together and to
keep together those who believe. He
must do this. His second call is to
concentrate and intensity the faith thus
collected. He is to make his church a.
storage battery, a place where faith
multiplies itself and intensifies its ener-
giles.
The Ultimate call, however, for both
church and minister, is that the faith
thus collected and concentrated shall be
diffused A church which is not mis-
sionary church has no right to live,
and minister who is not a missionary
minister ought to be. l shall try to an
swer the questions which I have sug-
gested, so far as they relate to the
American Missionary association with
in the time which you lend me. The
association was organized in 1S46 in the
days when feeling was growing in
tense over the assertions and agrees
sons of the slave power. The Rev. DR..
r. S.. Storrs in the Independent of few
weeks ago, reviewing the religious and
political conditions of those times sum-
marizes them in these words, viz;
1.-THE authority of the slave power
seemed established at Washington,
dominant over congress, supreme in the
courts and no limit was apparent to po-
litical sagacity beyond which that pow
err might not be pressed. new ele-
1nent Of dangerous disturbance. thus
came into the national religious devel-
opment. The churches at the south
We're perfectly unanimous that slavery
was right in itself, that it had ample
bible warrant, and on large scale was
beneficent in it's influence. This pro-
foundly affected the churches of the
north Various communions were pain
fully divided. Distinguished presidents
and professors in seminaries were some
times open supporters of the system and
IL,
frequently, they stood before the whole
momentous subject as dumb and cold
as statues. Prominent city pplpits were
glad to present in persuasive forms
what was distinctively styled 1.-The
South-side view" and ministers who re-
sisted and antagonized such tendencies
were apt to be regarded as presumptu-
GUS radicals. The American Tract So
ciety, which issued profuse tracts
against dancing, novel reading and sim
liar iniquities, was utterly dumb before
this colossal national wickedness The
A. b. G. F. M. resisted repeated efforts
to induce it to take decisive anti-slav-
cry ground among people to whom it
ministered, in its work, like the Chero-
KEGS and Choctaws, out of which
failure, however, came the Amer
lean Missionary association, since
so justly honored and so widely
useful" This from DR.. Storrs, who.
with DR.. Bacon, stood strong and
straight for the convictions then which
are universal convictions now. 1t was
something worth living for to hear Dr.
Bacon speak on the Internal laws which
authorized the Master to separate wives
from husbands and even to sell their
own CHlluren. AS Luther stood at the
diet of Worms DR.. Bacon at that time
stood in the meetings of the A. b. G. F.
M. on one occasion, when temporizer
who wanted to stop the debate proposed
a season of prayer. ut is no time for
prayer!" shouted Cor perhaps I should
say eXclaimed) DR.. Bacon 1--WE know
what we ought to do now. Let us have !
it out on this floor"
At last when it appeared that there |
was no other way to do missionary
work free from the complications of |
this aggressive slave power, those who
could not sustain slavery and who could
not keep silence met in Albany and or
ganized the American Missionary asso-
citation. There had been four local So
cieties which had started up in previ-
GUS protests, and two of them We're in
Connecticut. One had it's birth in New
Haven. 1t was in the autumn of 1889,
when United States cutter captured
Spanish slave schooner named the Am
istad, which had forty-two negroes on
board, who had been kidnapped on the
west coast of Africa and shipped for
Cuba, The negroes had made q bold !