On the Lord’s day, the eight who come by profession receive baptism at the hand of the pastor by immersion in the Oconee, which flows by the city. At night I have the privilege of participating with the church at their first communion season, when the ancient vessels of the Lord’s house, new to this band of disciples, enter upon their new round of service.
After the sowing, the reaping. The Knox School and the Atlanta University have been growing the timber for this house of the Lord. Several of the members have had that training and the teachers were thus prepared. It takes time to raise up a native ministry. A few years ago a boy who was a porter in an Atlanta hotel was started on his way to school, and now the same comes along the Christian pastor, ripened under the sun of our Southern institutions, an able minister of the Word. Much of our fruitage has been gathered into other churches. Now we garner up something of our own harvest.
The day came at last for our annual pilgrimage to the Mecca of Congregationalism in Alabama--our Congregational Conference. It was perfect, as Southern spring-days are apt to be--woods and fields bright with flowers and merry with bird songs. The pastors and delegates, filing from many directions, met at depots, their very greetings the happy premonitions of a good time. Selma seemed to be the place of rendezvous, and the cars from thence to Marion were quite well filled, as in the latter place the conference was to convene.
I regret to mar my recital here by that which alone I take no pleasure in writing. Some otherwise excellent railroad officials thought we were anxious to ride in the same car with our pupils, teachers, and church members, _because_ they were black, while really the young people were only asking for what their _first-class tickets_ called for. I would like to raise a question here. What can be done about these _first-class_ tickets sold to colored people, compelled to take passage on them in second-class cars? We missionaries are most heartily in favor of a peaceable solution of this question. A quarrel takes time and nerve, and hinders Christian development and progress; yet some apt person has said, “If you have got to have one, there is nothing like it.” I hope that we shall be wise enough not to have one.