Honorary Secretary and Editor, A. F. Beard, D.D., Corresponding Secretaries, Charles J. Ryder, D.D.; H. Paul Douglass, D.D.; Associate Secretary, H. L. Simmons; Treasurer, Irving C. Gaylord; Secretary of Woman's Work, Mrs. F. W. Wilcox; District Secretaries, Rev. George H. Gutterson, Congregational House, Boston, Mass.; Lucius O. Baird, D.D., 19 So. La Salle St., Chicago, Ill.; Rev. George W. Hinman, 21 Brenham Pl., San Francisco, Cal.; Field Secretary, Mrs. Ida Vose Woodbury, Congregational House, Boston, Mass. GREETING TO A. M. A. TEACHERS AND PASTORS The A. M. A. American Missionary must depend upon information from the field for interest with its readers, and for the degree of service which it can in turn render to our schools and churches. Often events and incidents which may not be considered striking to those who are in close relation with them, are yet full of interest to those at a distance. It seems to us that never a month in any school or in any church should pass without some interesting communication to us, which would give information to keep alive the sympathies and benevolences of those upon whom the support and welfare of our institutions depend. Many of our schools and most of our churches are absolutely unknown to the majority of those whose benevolences we are soliciting. They look upon the work as a whole without thought of the parts, but it is the concrete fact that brings interest. Illustrations of what is being accomplished and in what ways, will be gladly read. Personal histories and experiences are often acceptable and keep givers in heart with the work. We do not want mere appeals for new buildings and increased facilities and more money. The interest must be behind the appeals. Interesting stories of the results of our work are ef fective. If there are not furnished we may not expect much attention to "bitter cries" for funds and enlargements. Pictures which represent the life and scenery of a locality; which are characteristic of social conditions and surroundings will be especially valued. They are better received than mere buildings. AN INTERESTING EVENT Secretary C. J. Ryder Lincoln Memorial Day will be observed by our Congregational churches on Sunday, February 11, 1916, one day before the anniversary of the one. hundred and eighth birthday of Abraham Lincoln. The American Missionary Association suggested to our Sunday Schools many years ago, the observance of this impressive memorial service. Nothing could be more appropriate than that the Sunday schools should celebrate the anniversary of the birth of this great man, our honored President and our greatly mourned martyr under the general suggestion and direction. of the American Missionary Association. Certain reasons are apparent. In the first place, Abraham Lincoln was by birth a Mountaineer. He was born in Hodgdonville, Hardin Co., Ky., in the midst of this mountain. region. Although he early moved with his family to Indiana and then to Illinois he was a Highland lad born in the midst of these Highland clans. The American Missionary Association has work of large and important educational character among these same mountain people. The Indians were treated with considerate and kindly care by the United States Government under the direction of President Lincoln. Alaska was purchased by President Lincoln's great War Secretary which in a way attaches that interesting group of people to Abraham Lincoln's administration. Nearly four million slaves were emancipated by the magic of his wonderful Emancipation Proclamation. Now the American Missionary Association has been earnestly and efficiently at work for the education and elevation of the very people who are thus associated in our thought of Abraham Lincoln. When the A. M. A. suggested the keeping of a memorial day in the name of our great President, only a few responded. Year by year there has been an increasing number. Last year a full hundred thousand loyal Sunday school pupils and teachers observed Lincoln Memorial Day honoring this noble name, themselves and the American Missionary Association. We are hoping that one hundred and twenty-five thousand will be the full toll this year. An interesting Lincoln Memorial Exercise is prepared and may be secured from any of the offices of the Association. The appeal comes from these Highland lads and lassies; the brownskinned boys and girls of the Southland and the Indians of the prairie and the Eskimo and from our Island Territories to the boys and girls of our Congregational Sunday Schools for the largest contribution and most generous interest ever manifested. The measure of this interest is easy. It will be determined by the general observance of Lincoln Memorial Day. Boys and girls ask your Superintendent to write at once for the Concert Exercise and the envelopes to keep Lincoln Memorial Day, February 11, 1917, and generously remember the work of the American Missionary Association. LINCOLN O Chieftain sent to break the captives' chains, And make the great republic free indeed; With eyes bedewed the high romance we read. -John Gaylord Davenport LEST WE FORGET In the steady undoing of the negro's political privileges, we are again reverting to that condition of half-slave, half-free which Lincoln declared to be intolerable he would, we believe, be the first to say that a native-born American without a ballot is defenceless before his enemies, is in no sense really free; and he would find illustrations without number to prove his contention. For Lincoln to see those same poor black creatures who swarmed about him when he reached Richmond after its fall, whose pathetic, hysterical joy over their saviour from slavery he curbed with such wise and kindly advice, now set apart in trains, street cars, places of amusement, hotels, by an iron caste, would appall the greatest apostle of democracy. Appall, but not discourage. When to his disappointment in 1856 but two persons came to the mass-meeting he had called at Springfield to ratify the Illinois anti-Nebraska Convention of 1856, he heartened himself, his partner Herndon, and John Pain, by saying: While all seems dead the age itself is not. It liveth as sure as our Maker liveth. Under all this seeming want of life and motion the world does move, nevertheless. Be hopeful and now let us adjourn and appeal to the people. So must those who to-day work in his spirit, and the negroes themselves, appeal to the people in whose hearts still resides that justice in which Lincoln never lost faith. So writes the Evening Post. Let us have faith to believe that the day will come, and that we can help it along, when the Southern white people will acknowledge the colored people as a constituent part of the body politic, and will apply the principle of which they regulate the right of suffrage, impartially both to the white and the colored. SLAVES CAPTURED IN AFRICA IN 1859 AND BROUGHT TO MOBILE AND SOLD THE SAME YEAR By Principal Klebsattel Emerson Institute, Mobile Accompanying this are the pictures of Cudjo Lewis and Aunt Zuma, two of the survivors of the last cargo of slaves brought to the United States from Africa. The importation of slaves into the United States was forbidden after 1808, but the law was evaded and slaves were smuggled in. As far as known, the last incident of this kind occurred in 1859, when a cargo of about one hundred and ten slaves was landed a short distance above Mobile. Some members of this original cargo, nine in number, still survive and live in and near Platean, five miles north of Mobile. The story of the adventures of these slaves is most interesting as related to the writer by Uncle Cudjo. Together with the other slaves that were brought over, he lived in a village on the west coast of Africa not far from the mouth of the Congo. In 1859, the king of a a neighboring tribe demanded as tribute half of the crops and other possessions of Cudjo's tribe. On this being refused, he made a night raid, captured the inhabitants, and destroyed the village. The captives were formed into a band and marched to the coast about one hundred miles away, sold to the see land again. Twice a day they were exercised on deck in chains and in small squads. At other times they were kept below, chained to the floor, with just enough room to lie down. The suffering was intense, due to the almost total darkness, the heat, and the scarcity of water. They were given a pint a day, onehalf on the morning and one-half at night. Those that died during the voyage were simply pitched overboard. When they finally arrived off Mobile Bay the boat was towed up the bay and river to Twelve Mile Island, the slaves landed and the boat burned to the waters' edge. The CUDJO LEWIS slave dealers, loaded into a ship and brought to the United States. Cudjo tells most interestingly how, when the village was attacked, hearing the screams and shots, he tried to flee to the woods, but finding the village surrounded, crept into a hut and hid under some rags, where he was afterward discovered and dragged forth. IIe was then about eighteen years of age. Zuma being probably about forty; possibly a year or two plus. The voyage to this country took seventy-two days. The slaves had never been out of sight of land before and were greatly terrified at first and believed they would never AUNT ZUMA hull may still be seen; at low tide it is partly exposed. The slaves were sold at public auc tion in Mobile and most of them taken to near-by plantations. This was but fifty-seven years ago. They were held in slavery until the close of the Civil War. When released, most of them settled down near their old plantations and today they and their descendants form a large part of the town of Plateau, Alabama. It is most interesting to see the original slaves and their offspring living side by side and to note the wonderful strides made in a single generation. Aunt Zuma is probably nearly one hundred years old; Cudjo Lewis about seventy-five. They are both still quite active, and like the other survivors, have acquired some property. LETTER FROM LINCOLN NORMAL SCHOOL, MARION, ALA. HARD TIMES Miss M. E. Phillips, Principal In July, there were two great floods that covered the plantations and ruined the crops, for the water stood so long on the land that everything decayed and was lost. As soon as the water disappeared, the people planted the second crop and hoped to make enough to eat, but a drought began in August and lasted until the second week in October, and nearly everything is parched and dried up. We lost all our school crop but a few sweet potatoes and a little corn. There are hundreds of people who are absolutely without the means to buy food and clothing. I have on my desk the rames of one hundred and fifty people from one plantation on the Cahaba River who lost everything and are destitute, and there are many other plantations with as many destitute people upon them. Some are old and feeble; other:: are sick; some are little children. Our pastor went out to this district and reports things in a terrible condition. They are coming to us over two hundred every week and we are doing all we can for them. We are not turning away good worthy student from school. Many come to us with sad faces saying that they have no money and only their two hands but are willing to work or do any thing if I will let them stay. One poor girl had a piece of land and planted a crop which brought her only seven dollars, all she had for food, clothes, and schooling for eight months, after work one ing all summer. Her land was on a hil side and so escaped the flood to a certain extent. She is a bright promising girl and wishes to teach and help her people; so I thought her worthy of Student Aid and took her into the Boarding Hall. We have over fifty in the Boarding Hall and there are but five paying full price for what they are getting. They have not the money, and there is nothing to do but to trust that the bread and pork will be provided for them. One man came with his little boy and a bushel of meal to feed him. He said. "That is all I had and it must last him a month." I asked him where the pork was and he said, "We done cut that out long ago. We won't starve on corn bread." We have at least fifty children who come to school with no lunch or just a piece of corn bread, and they look so hungrily at the children who have a lunch. We are planning to open a soup kitchen in November and give every child a bowl of hot soup for lunch. Our cooking school will make the soup and the Soup Fund which is now twelve do!lars will pay for the meat and vegetables as long as it lasts. It will be wel! worth while to warm up the stomachs of fifty little children with a bowl of hot soup. We did not ask for any Christmas treat this year, but we do ask for bread and meat and clothes for the hungry and naked. Our boarding students have their |