the
future, if only the strategic points can now be occupied. One
church and one school to a county, should be our immediate aim;
then we can throw upon these the work of developing native teachers
and preachers for the rest. There are forty counties waiting for
us, and all our mountain work so far is in three or four. I see
this place where I am, changing like magic under the influence of
school and church, but the necessity for our going forward
oppresses me. I am ready for any additional labor, and will carry
any burden my strength will permit, if only the American Missionary
Association will take for its motto, 'One church and one school in
every mountain county, as fast as they can be established.' I feel,
when I see the need, as if I could plead the money right out of the
most self-indulgent members of our favored churches at home. It
would not be expensive as compared with other missionary work.
Cannot some way be devised for making a large advance on the
present movement?"
* * * * *
Those who thought to cripple Atlanta University because it could not
yield its principles for the sake of a State appropriation of $8,000
made a mistake. They have helped that which they meant to hinder. The
university will get the money. Joseph's brethren took counsel together
and said, "We will see what will become of his dream," and they
thought they had a sure thing when they put him in a pit, but they
discovered {89} some years after that this was but a way-station on
the direct road to the Viceroyship of Egypt, and they saw what became
of his dream.
When Napoleon the First wished to hinder the Huguenot Church, he gave
it a small stipend in order to retain hold of it. He appropriated just
enough to keep it a cripple. When the State of Georgia thought the
education of the Negro was becoming too marked, it reversed the policy
of the far-seeing Bonaparte and took its hands off. We have never
thought that Napoleon was a truly good man, but we do believe that he
had a larger idea of the philosophy of control than the author of the
Glenn Bill. If the State had held on, it might have hindered, but it
has lost its hold.
* * * * *
Would it not sound well to the American people to have it said that in
the United States of America, in the year 1888, our missionaries were
imprisoned for reading the Bible to a heathen tribe of Indians who
lived remote fro
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