Excerpt
American Missionary Association
It gives us great pleasure to announce that, at a recent meeting of our Executive Committee, Rev. Wm. M. Taylor, D.D., Pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle, New York, was elected President of the American Missionary Association.
The death of our late honored President, ex-Governor Washburn, occurred so short a time before our last Annual Meeting, that no attempt was there made to elect his successor, but the matter was referred according to the Constitution, to the Executive Committee. After mature deliberation and with great unanimity, Dr. Taylor was elected. A brief extract from his letter accepting the position will indicate his sympathy with our work, and his heartiness in co-operating with us in this new relation.
"Your Association, alike by its history in the past and its work in the present, has a strong hold on my heart. It is doing a work much needed; one, too, which is intimately connected with the welfare of the nation, as well as with the future of the races among whom it specially labors. It has always been a joy to me to plead for it with my people from my pulpit, and I regard your selection of me as your President, as one of the highest honors of my life."
We are glad to be able to mention, also, the election of Mr. Charles A. Hull as a member of our Executive Committee, in place of the honored and respected A.S. Barnes, deceased. Mr. Hull was formerly a member of the committee, but was compelled to retire on account of pressure of business. He now returns to his place cheerfully and to our great satisfaction.
Who reads Missionary Magazines?—We are glad to know that THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY has appreciative readers with quick eyes. From the last numbers we have noticed extracts and quotations in the New York Observer, the Religious Herald, the Advance, the New York Tribune, and the New York Times. We are more than willing.
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THE INDIAN PROBLEM.
A good deal of ingenious ciphering has been done in endeavoring to solve this problem, and, withal, there has been a good deal of honest and efficient work. The Government has largely increased its appropriations from year to year, the Dawes Bill and other valuable legislation have been secured, so that steps looking towards the citizenship of the Indian have been attained. Appropriations have been granted to aid him in farming and other industrial pursuits, and it is not unlikely that in a short time provision will be made for the education in the common English branches of every Indian child.
But all this is not sufficient. The Indian may have lands and citizenship and an English education, and yet, if he has no strong impulse towards civilization, no motive in his heart impelling him to be an industrious, self-supporting citizen—in short, if he has not a new heart looking to a new life as a citizen and a man, he will become a vagabond on the land granted him, and a skeptic in the school in which he is taught. The next few years will constitute a crisis in the rapidly changing condition of the Indian, and it is precisely at this point where the vital element of the Christian life must be infused into his character....