Southern Christian Advocate

MISCELLANEOUS.

For the Southern Christian Advocate.

MISSIONS IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

Mr. Editor,—Our good and able friend, G. W. W., read the postscript to my paper on our money difficulties in our missionary operations, which appeared in the Advocate of 24th ult., and taking its suggestion of suspension to apply to the S. C. Conference alone, has written a stirring and I trust useful reply. But I intended no such restriction. I meant to embrace the whole church, except our foreign missions perhaps.

In looking over the article, the reading of the last sentence led to the writing of the first and second sentences of the P. S., to which G. W. W. excepts. You are aware, Mr. Editor, how we have been run into debt, and how exceedingly disagreeable it is to us to find ourselves in this predicament—and you could have explained all this had you been applied to [was absent. Ed.]

Now, making the connection, which I unfortunately left broken in my communication, the whole runs thus :—“It should not be lost sight of either that the missionary collections for next year (i. e., in our Conference,) will be crippled by the payment out of them of the fourth quarterly instalment and part of the third for this year ; this looking back having been occasioned by the action of the Parent Board (i. e., at Nashville). I am half inclined to think it might be well to suspend all our missions (i. e., in our whole church,) for a year, so as to allow of our having the money in hand in advance yearly. Thus those who manage (i. e., at Nashville,) would know exactly what they had to expend, and would be able to save us the unpleasantness, to say no more, of running and being run into debt.”

That is all in this connection. The truth is. I am dissatisfied with our Parent Missionary management as to finances, as many others are; nor do I see how that management can be set right, unless by a year's suspension, or else by a stand-still or contracting plan in the work and a considerable enlargement in contributions for a year or several years, so as to liquidate the debt and give us the money in hand in advance yearly.

After all, I have no expectation, and certainly no wish, that our missions should be suspended; and my object was, in this way, to call attention to what I hold to be an evil which should be abated. I am glad G. W. W. is startled : would that those who need startling might be similarly affected !

In reply to G. W. W.'s inquiry, “What would become of the missionaries during the suspension ? How are they to be fed and clothed ?”

I cannot forbear saying, that in case of suspension the Bishop could appoint those who are now missionaries to fill the circuit and station work in lieu of those who have gone from among us to the wars : and we will gladly receive them to share in our “rations.” No difficulty exists at that point.

Speaking of the slaves, G. W. W. says, “We became their owners and guardians ; and with the transfer of property passed the duty to look after their spiritual as well as their temporal wants.” Granted: most gladly and in good faith, granted. But who is to look after the “temporal wants” of G. W. W.'s own negroes—I only use his name as an instance, not that I make an issue with him—there in the city of Charleston ? He, or I?—Or, is he to find them one half and look to me to find the other? The bare statement of the question negatives the question. Very well: now as to the “spiritual wants” of these same negroes. They must be supplied with the teachings, devotions, services of the Christian religion, or G. W. W. forfeits his own claim to be regarded as a Christian. Who, I now ask, who is to look after these spiritual wants? He or I? Or. is he to pay half the salary of the minister who serves them and I the other half? As before, the question is no sooner stated than it is negatived. I suppose that which holds good in the case of G. W. W.'s slaves must hold with equal force with all similar cases ; and the application is palpable—a boy of ten years can make it. And yet, after making the statement, “There is required for the missions in this Conference at least $20,000,” G. W. W. goes on to say, “I feel quite sure the Planters will contribute half that sum.” This is a disastrous year, confessedly, to planting interests. Last year was not so : yet last year the Planters fell short of this amount; and how then can they be expected to contribute in a year like this? They may be—I cannot doubt they are well able to do it in one way or another ; but will they think themselves able? Then, to raise the other $10,000 G. W. W. inquires, “Are there not twenty Methodists who will give each $500 to so good a cause?” Perhaps there are. From my heart earnestly I wish my brother success in finding nineteen.

In my former article, in speaking of an application direct to the Planters, I had said, “We pay a poor compliment to the humanity, the appreciation of this work and the readiness to promote it, shared by these gentlemen in common with us, when we allow what is surely a mistaken delicacy to restrain us from calling on them to aid in these times of pressure ; and the more, when in ordinary times. it is equally their privilege and their duty to provide fully for the gospel among their slaves—a part of their household—without allowing aid from any quarter.”

As if to controvert this view of the duty of the owners to supply entirely the ministry to their slaves—though I know this cannot be the intention—G. W. W. suggests that the Planters raise one-half the necessary sum and he and nineteen other benevolent and liberal souls will raise the other half as a bestowment. Now, I declare plainly that this is all an error. For instance, Trinity church in Charleston is composed of a given number of families, each family supposed to be made up of parents, children and servants. The ministry in this church is supported by the heads of these families; and the children and servants are never supposed to be taken into the account, except as they may be taught to give for the sake of training or as they may give of their own volition. Suppose the Trinity Stewards send out asking twenty or any other number of Methodists to contribute one-half the support of their pastor—what would be the effect throughout the Conference? A set of families live on some island or delta or along some river. They unite in desiring a minister to serve the colored part of their families, and another minister to serve the white members of their families—any who choose, of either part, being at liberty to attend the religious services of the other. Now, with what show of propriety can the heads of these families pay the full salary of the clergyman for the white portion of the families and look to the benevolence of the country to aid them in paying the clergyman for the colored part of the household, any more than to reverse this state of things?—and yet the reversal would be monstrous.

My view in brief is, that the man who owns a hundred or thousand slaves is just as much bound to furnish them with the institutions of Christianity as the man who owns but one or half a dozen ; and that each is just as much under obligation to do this for his slaves, as he is to do it for his wife or children; and that whatever there may be praiseworthy or censurable in the one case is so in the other.

Nevertheless, I hold that if the owners neglect this duty, we should and must, in charity to the soul of the black man, supply the negroes with the gospel.

If, however, the Planters would do as they should in this matter, and as they surely would do, I cannot but believe, were the subject thought of by them, we should have, I repeat, a handsome amount to be employed in our poor, sparse white neighborhoods and in our really destitute foreign missions, instead of employing it in paying ministers to preach the gospel to the slaves of the wealthy in our own favored land—which slaves bring this very wealth to their owners, and a part of which should be appropriated in giving them fully the ministry of life, as well as to their proper clothing, food and lodging.

Mr. Editor, I am obliged to our good brother for giving me occasion to write again on this subject—which I had not thought of; and yet I fear what has been written may never fall under the eyes of those most interested. The secular press, rather than the strictly religious, would aid us here, but I do not know that we could there find space.

Nov. 7th, 1861.

H. A. C. WALKER.