ANNUAL ADDRESS. OF REV. E.K. LOVE, D.D., President, MISSIONARY BAPTIST CONVENTION OF GA. AT AUGUSTA, GA., WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9TH, 1897.

Session held with Thankful Baptist Church. Brethren of the Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia: I greet you today in this our 27th Annual Meeting. This Convention was organized by the Fathers, in this city 27 years ago. It has had its failures and its successes, its bitters and its sweets, its sorrows and its joys, its ups and its downs, its storms and its calms. Most of the fathers who organized this Convention have gone to their reward. A few are still with us on the grand old ship, while a few of them have done and are still doing all in their power to destroy this hallowed organization for the reason that they could not rule it. They felt that they ought to rule; forgetting the fact that rulers are born. We felt that they had not the ability to rule and hence we declined to put them in charge, and therefore they rebelled and organized them something which they have promised to rule. Just how well they are fulfilling their promise I leave a scrutinizing public to say. Splits in organizations are always the results of ambition, ignorance, weakness and wickedness. As to where the fault lies I submit in evidence a comparison of the ability, work, influence and congregations of the men composing the two Conventions and await with confidence the verdict of an impartial public. Reaction must ultimately set in and these will receive the reward of their evil doings. Already the reckoning has begun and it is only a question of time and this rebellion will crumble and fall and be no more. God hasten the day. We have come up from our different fields of labor to rest awhile while we recount the hardships, the sorrows, trials, and tribulations we have encountered on the battle field and tell of the bruises and wounds that we have received in the battle since we met together last. We come to rejoice together of the successes that have attended our labors, of the souls that have been saved, and to plan earnestly and wisely for future usefulness. I hope I meet you well, happy, cheerful and full of hope today and that you come up to Jerusalem charged with the Holy Spirit. I wish for you, in this meeting, the most abundant success. I trust nothing will be said or 0003 4done to mar that sweet peace that ought to characterize this Christian body.

The History of the Convention.

While we thanked God for this Convention and for the Fathers who organized it and while there has been much about the Convention of which we are justly proud, there are things about it that must make us verily ashamed. If this Convention was wiped out of existence today, it would leave no material proof that it ever did exist. That it has been instrumental in doing much good by spreading the gospel and saving souls, we all fondly believe. But this Convention is not known as a Convention of enterprise and educational center of influence. It has no standing record nor recognition in the civilized world along these lines. As a Convention we do not own one grain of earth, not enough timber out of which to make a match, and not enough type to fill a gnat's eye. We do not indeed own a thing to which we can point with pride and say this is sacred to the memory of the Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia. What is worse, it seems that the majority of our brethren are satisfied to live at this poor dying rate. The Baptists of Georgia once made a fine start. They were told by the leaders that they were going to build a College. It was no trouble to raise money when this object was held out before the people. Seven acres of land were bought in the city of Atlanta and the leaders promised to erect a College on it. Without consulting the churches and the people from whom the money was gathered, they arrogated to themselves the right to vote away the people's property to the Home Mission Society, as a gracious gift and received in return no recognition in the management of the school nor part nor share in the property. This dreadful deception destroyed the enterprise and life of the Negro Baptists of Georgia and they have done nothing since. The Home Mission Society through its hired agents have been dictating and undertaking to run the Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia ever since.

Dr. White is my witness that the Home Mission Society has gone so far as to say who should and who should not be President of this Convention and that if we did not submit to their dictation, they would withdraw their help from us. President Sales is quoted as saying at the New Movement Convention in Savannah last October that he and the schools were accused of splitting the Convention and that if he did he was proud of it. Just think of it, a President of a college, a preacher, an educated white man, telling a set of ignorant Negro preachers and ex-slaves, that he was proud of the division in the army of the Lord in the face of the prayer of Jesus for the union of his people. We can hardly excuse President Sales for this and I do not see how we can co-operate with him. The leaders of this Convention have assumed too much of a begging attitude. We have looked to our white brethren for money to carry on our work and thereby have neglected to organize and systematize our work and enthuse our people. We have grown 0004 5too largely to be parasites. We have not been taught that we must carve out our own destiny and that our salvation is in our own right arm. These things we must set to work to correct. We have too often put men to lead in our Convention who could not lead the people at home. If a man cannot make his own church work a success, he cannot make the Convention work a success. Those who pastor the people must lead the Convention. They are indeed the God-selected leaders. He cannot lead the leaders who cannot lead the followers. A man's ability to lead ought to and must be judged by his success in leading his church. The fact that a man cannot succeed in leading his own church is the strongest proof that God has not chosen him to be a leader.

Our Most Crying Need.

We have many able, profound, learned and eloquent preachers, but few able, energetic, progressive and unselfish pastors. Most of our pastors do little more than run their churches, collect their salaries, pay current expenses, run periodical revivals and raise money to buy a fine suit of clothes and pay their way to the Convention and Associations. We need unselfish leaders, filled with the Holy Ghost, possessed with executive ability, progressive, and who will organize their people and inaugurate a system of doing practical christian work. The congregation who pays its pastors, and pays current expenses of the church is only harnessed up to do work in the Master's vineyard. I have been painfully surprised at the indifference and inactivity of most of our supposed big preachers in our denominational work in the state this year. They come to the Convention make the biggest speeches and desire to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, and yet they assist in carrying out no systematic scheme of doing Christian work nor assist in anything that tends to elevate our people outside of their church work. You may write to them on subjects of the most vital importance touching our denominational work and they would no more answer you than if you were writing to a marble statute. But write them on any thing touching their immediate personal interest and you are most promptly answered. This is sinful selfishness, pure and simple. This condition of affairs has made me despair of hope for the amelioration of our denominational work at least for a generation. Indeed our progress must be deferred until another set of men, wiser, broader, more progressive and less selfish come upon the field. A very few of these so-called big preachers have co-operated with me in my plans of our convention's work this year. The fathers let the thing go down and we their sons have not redeemed it. Indeed 0005 6we have not done as well as the fathers did though we have much greater privileges. I speak this to our shame. Our great need is not more laborers in the vineyard but a better class of laborers. Men who will deny themselves and follow Jesus. Men who will feel that duty is not performed while aught remains to be done which they can do. We need a thorough system in our work. We need not only wise planning, but we need large-hearted, active, brave and energetic men to execute these plans. We need more work of charity connected with our Convention. As it is we are doing nothing really but meeting once a year and preach, talk, pass big resolutions and create debts which we never plan to pay, nor do we try. At present state of work and Christian usefulness if our Convention was blotted out of existence the world would not miss it. This state of affairs greatly distress me. I long for a happy change. I beseech Almighty God and implore you that we make a change and that we begin it from this meeting.

Let us do something that the world may know and feel our Convention. We can do it and we are unworthy of our calling if we do not do it. The condition of our people and of our denomination demands that we do something. We can not live at this poor dying rate. Let us quit like men and be strong and the God of heaven will prosper us.

Our Proposed College.

That we need such an institution must be admitted. All civilized nations have colleges or institutions of learning of their own. It ought not to be considered a crime for a people to want something of their own, under their own control, neither should it be styled ungratefulness and antagonism for a people to set up business for themselves. No race is entitled to a monopoly of the enterprises of the country. Hence I do not feel called upon to render an excuse nor make an explanation to any body for desiring and determining to establish a college owned and controlled by Negroes. That is our right and no body has a right to ask us, why doth thou this? We are told that we are too weak to do this mighty work. But how shall we acquire the strength to do this work? Shall we acquire it by lying supinely upon our backs and hugging the delusive phantoms of hope until our golden opportunity shall have passed by and the time come for us to die? Nay, verily, we shall never acquire strength by such unmanly methods. The only institutions of learning in the state of which we can have any racial pride are the few high schools 0006 7which have been erected by associations. The most prominent among which are the Walker and Jeruel High schools. There are others which are destined to bless our race and denomination. We can and should establish a college and have these high schools as feeders to it. If you see this thing as I do, and feel about it as I do, we will soon betake us to this work—We ought to mark some place along our journey through this wilderness to let the children who are coming behind us know that we have been here. Let us leave our footprints upon the sands of time; impressing those coming behind us that we felt that to live was divine. Every Baptist in Georgia ought to rally to the support of this laudable enterprise. I believe we can marshal our forces and rally our people to the support of this enterprise as we cannot to anything else. There is an intense longing in the hearts of our people for something that they can call their own. This is but in keeping with our intellectual progress.

The more cultured and refined a people become, the more racial pride they will have, the more independent manhood they will possess and the more earnestly will they desire and struggle to have something of their own and seek to manage their own affairs. This is one of the natural results of education. I believe that it is just as reasonable to hold that Negroes can best teach Negroes as it is to hold that Negroes can best preach to Negroes. Some tell us that we must not draw the color line and that we must be blind to color. He is both blind and foolish who does not recognize the fact that the color line is already drawn. I do not believe that any white man is color blind, except some few mid-night cases. I believe in a color line just as firmly as I believe in a racial line. I only object to unjust discrimination because of color. I believe every race should recognize its racial distinction. I believe in race schools and I believe in race ownership of these schools. I would rather be with a Negro than with any body else on earth, and I believe no white man when he tells me that he prefers to be with Negroes to being with his own race. I believe he is both untruthful, hypocritical and disloyal; all of which I despise. I believe we ought to have a college of our own and to that end I am willing to work till I die, although I am not willing to be re-elected as President of the Convention.

The High Schools.

We ought to pay more attention to our Baptist High schools. They are doing a glorious work for Christ, our people and for our denomination. They are in sympathy with us and we ought to foster them as our own. We ought to have a system of helping them. It would be too narrow for us to refrain from helping them, because they are not in our 0007 8immediate locality. It would be unwise and impracticable to undertake to establish a high school in every locality or in the bounds of every Association. It is impossible to maintain them. I would recommend that high schools be established with some system and in certain distances; and in order to do this there ought to be an agreement that the matter of establishing them should be left with the Executive Board or a committee appointed by this Convention. There should be some federal head among us If this recommendation wars with Baptist independence, then I am against that much of Baptist independence. I am proud of the Walker Baptist Institute. It is doing a great work and is destined to do a greater work. I recommend that we give this institution and others of its kind as large a donation as our means will justify.

Church Extension Fund.

It is our duty to create a church extension fund to help poor struggling churches and to build churches where people are too few and poor to build them. Many poor churches might have been saved and many more built if there had been a fund upon which they could have drawn in time of need. In this way we could more successfully and rapidly spread the gospel and elevate our people. I have known of pitiable cases in which churches have struggled and finally gone under because there were no funds upon which they could draw in the nick of time. At many stations and in many localities, Baptist churches might have been built and made strong and flourishing, could the few struggling Baptists have been helped at the right time. The argument in favor of establishing a church extension fund is abundant and I believe we can rally our people to this worthy object.

An Aged Minister's Fund.

We ought to do something for those who have done so much for us. In the dark days, those who hazarded their lives and went about over the state preaching the Gospel gathering our people and organizing churches and laid the foundation upon which we proudly stand to-day. The few of them who still live are worn out. They are poor, friendless and helpless. They have and are still suffering. Some of them have gone to their graves hungry, naked and homeless. We ought to make some provision for them—But for them we could not have been. As sons we ought to care for our helpless fathers and thus secure the blessing promised the obedient children to their parents. There should be a fund from which these helpless fathers could draw something at least once a year. We will have the people at our backs in this praise worthy cause. Let us begin even now to raise this fund and thus become a blessing to the fathers at their closing days as they were to us in the morning of our lives. I recommend that a fund be sacredly set apart for this purpose 0008 9at this Convention. Let us remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” In doing this we do but cast bread upon the waters which shall be seen and gathered many days hence—Indeed it shall return to us increased an hundred fold. I have been pleased to see the interest the people have taken in this feature of my plan as I have travelled over the State. The people are with us and I know that God approves our course. Let us then go about this work with courage and determined zeal. The God of heaven he will prosper us.

An Orphanage.

It has never occurred to most of our preachers that the caring for the orphans among us was any part of Christian work. God moved upon Rev. Gad S. Johnson of this city that it was a part of Christian work and that the ministers ought to lead in it. Under his leadership the “Gad S. Johnson Orphanage” has been established in this city to bless our people, and honor our denomination and to glorify God in the world. As president of this Convention I have twice visited this orphanage and I was profoundly impressed with what it was doing and its capability for future usefulness. I wrote an account of my first visit for the GEORGIA BAPTIST, but it was not published. I thank God that nothing can prevent me from getting a hearing before the convention on this important department of Christian work. The Convention must throw its arms of protection around this institution. As I looked at those little innocent boys and girls, fed, clothed and kept in a comfortable house and being taught by a faithful, earnest teacher, I could not help asking myself the question what would these children have done the past cold winter, if this orphanage was not here. It may be that God raised up Gad S. Johnson for this work and sent him just in time to save these children. Who knows what wonderful men and women these children will make? Doubtless their parents look down from heaven upon their children and praise God for raising up Rev. Gad S. Johnson to establish this orphan home. There are thousands of orphans in Georgia, who are suffering death on earth whom we might care for and make great men and women. Miss Fannie Mitchell is teaching these orphans at a sacrifice. She is doing a great work. If her office was a good paying one there would be many aspirants. But being an humble one no one but the truly pious, devout and self-sacrificing christian would take it.

Such a person I believe Miss Mitchell is. But I believe God is going to bless this institution and that it will grow in number 0009 10and favor with God and man; then let us hope that this worthy self denying christian lady will reap the reward of her suffering. We ought to have such an institution in Georgia, and I recommend that this convention make to it as large a donation as possible. I further recommend that Rev. Gad S. Johnson will be authorized and instructed to travel over Georgia and raise money for this Institution and that the brethren set before him an open door.

The Negro Baptist Publishing House.

I had the honor to read a paper before the National Baptist Convention at St. Louis, Mo., last September on “The needs of a National Baptist Publishing house.” The Convention adopted my paper and voted to commence the publication of Sunday school literature beginning with the first of the year. The work has happily begun and we have now our own literature which is in every way equal to that which we have been getting from the Publication Society at Philadelphia. Many deceitful, disloyal Negroes and hirelings of the Publication Society have been and are still doing all they can against it. I thank God that the kickers it has, have been very few in Georgia. All of the Sunday schools connected with my church are taking the Negro Baptist literature and I am highly pleased with it. I thank God that our people have begun to think, act, write and print for themselves. I do not see that we are enemies to the Publication Society because we set up business for ourselves, any more than that my brother is my enemy because he opens a store in the same city I do, or that one church is an enemy to another because it builds a house and worship God in the same city or that I am an enemy to my father because I marry a woman and rear a family. We want something of our own that we may be able to give employment to our people. The race ought to frown down on these disloyal Negroes who are ingloriously opposing this laudable Negro enterprise to curry the favor of white people and to be called a good sensible Negro. My race first and all the other races in their order afterwards. I hope Georgia will fall in line with other enterprising loyal states and support and patronize our Negro Baptist Publishing House. I recommend that the Missionary Baptist Convention pass resolutions endorsing the Negro Baptist Publishing House and request all of our churches to take the literature of the Negro Baptist Publishing House. It is not only as good as that which we have been taking, but it is a question of race pride and of race gain in dollars and cents and it gives employment to Negroes which they cannot hope for in a white publishing house.

Our National Baptist Magazine.

For several years there has been printed by the national Baptist 0010 11Convention a National Baptist Magazine in the city of Washington, D.C., edited by Dr. W. Bishop Johnson. It is an up-to-date quarterly and we should be proud of it. It should be in the home of every Negro Baptist in the land. We can hardly hope that the white Baptists will subscribe very largely to it. They do not do that sort of business. Even those who claim to be color blind. They are so blind that they do not in any great numbers see our production. Dr. Johnson has worked most assiduously to make the Magazine a success and he should have the most generous support of the Negro Baptists of this country. I recommend and indeed urge every Baptist in Georgia to take it. Our papers and magazines must live by our support by subscribing for them. They cannot live on good words and well- wishing. These will not meet bank notes nor pay for ink or setting type. The subscription to the Magazine is only $1.25 a year and surely every Baptist should feel enough pride in his denomination to support a National Organ. We cannot amount to much as a denomination until we learn to rally to and support some National publication. We ought to rally our forces to some one thing and make that a success. Indeed the different State Conventions should make annual donations to this Magazine or better still to take stock in it. I will gladly take the subscription of any body who is Baptist enough to take this Magazine. It comes to you once in every three months. I recommend that this Convention take stock in it and thus be the first to set the example as a Convention. Doubtless other states will follow. Let us show ourselves to the world as being progressive and possessing race and denominational pride. I hope you will act along this line in this session.

Our Sunday School Work.

It is to be regretted that more of our preachers do not take a more active interest in Sunday-school work. Church work can not be very healthy and successful without a well ordered Sunday-school. The preachers who do not take an active part in Sunday-school work, will ultimately lose their hold on the churches. The minister's calling is to feed the lambs as well as the sheep. There is no department of christian work that promises so rich a harvest as the Sunday-school work. For years we have been struggling to have a thorough organization of our Sunday-schools in Georgia and when we thought we had fairly succeeded a split occurred at Milledgeville in 1892. As all other splits this one grew out of a thirst for office. This Sunday-school split was the entering wedge to the split in the Missionary Baptist Convention which followed in 1893 at Atlanta. The children taught the old folks how to split. The majority of the Sunday-schools in Georgia are not now, and 0011 12have never been connected actively with our Sunday School work of the State. I charge the cause to the pulpit. I have wondered and I still wonder if there is no way of arousing our ministers in the State Sunday School work to the end that we might unite our Sunday schools in one grand Convention. If we love God and have the Spirit of Christ and have His cause at heart. I do not see why this cannot be done. Why cannot we have every Sunday-school in Georgia represented in one Convention. If we say we cannot do this, then we admit that we are not wise leaders and that we have not the spirit of Christ. If you view the threatening scene as I do, doubtless you would be alarmed as I am. I do not see how we can sit still and be at ease in Zion when treason is larking within our fold. How can we hold our peace when our children are being taught that bickering, slandering, envy, bad feeling and division are no crimes and that with impunity they can be practice by the saints in the churches and Sunday-schools. I call upon the ministers and members of this Conven to join me in bringing about a happy change in our Sunday School work in Georgia.—“To the works, to the work, ye servants of God, Let us follow in the path that our Master has trod.” I recommend that this Convention request every pastor to have his Sunday-school represented in our State Sunday School Convention. This is the only way to organize our work in the state so that we can know what we are doing and what needs to be done. As our work now stands, we have only the shadow of an organization in Georgia. This should make us hang our heads in shame.

Our Mission Work.

For several years we have done no mission work at all. This was due to the fact that we raised no money and had no way of paying missionaries if we had put them on the field. We owe several of those whom we employed several years ago. I have felt that it would be unwise and even dishonest to contract debts when there was no hope of paying them. There are many men who like to be missionaries but most of them would be a burden on our hands because they could and would raise so little money on the field. Hence, I have felt it would not be good leadership to put out missionaries until we had revived the missionary spirit in our people and had collected some money with which to start. One of the things that helped to destroy the missionary spirit in the people was we too often put a poor and incompetent class of men on the field and the people saw it. Our sympathy too often got the best of our judgment. We ought to pay our debts before contracting any more. Let us not forget that the spreading of the gospel is the first duty of the christian church. The fault of not being able to do mission work in Georgia lays at the door of the ministers. Our people will do as their pastors tell them. We can raise money for any thing we desire. We have but to ask for it and but few in our congregation will refuse to give. We have not (I fear) this cause at heart. The people are generally interested in whatever their pastors are. There ought to be a system 0012 13of raising missionary money. Each church ought to take regular monthly collections for mission, or even quarterly collections would be better than no system. I recommend that each church raise a collection for mission once a month and forward the same to the Treasurer.

There ought to be men and women Mission Societies in every church and their members be required to pay 10 cents a month for missions. This would enable us to cover Georgia with the gospel and this we can and should do. I do not believe it is best to have Association to undertake to do mission work in their bounds. I believe that has contributed much to the defeat of the State Mission work. If the Associations are going to do mission work, then the Convention had just as well abandon it further than to help the associations. It is decidedly best for the state mission work to be under one common authority and done by the State Convention. Those who advocate associational mission work are generally those who want the job of being missionaries. It has been too often the case that those whom we have employed as missionaries have been those who could not get a church; for just as fast as they have been able to get churches they have left the field. I do not think it is wise to employ men as missionaries just to give them something to do. We should remember that it is the work of the Lord and that we should not make it a convenience to reward friends. We ought to strive to put our best men on the field. Incompetent men will do more harm than good.

Our Foreign Mission Work.

Since 1880, the Negro Baptists of the United States have been attempting to do mission work in Africa. Several thousand dollars have been spent on the field in Africa. Several of our missionaries have lost their lives on the field. We still have missionaries there preaching the gospel to the heathens who are looking to us for support. We ought not to let them look in vain. They are christian heroes and deserve our praise, prayers and support. We are commissioned to preach the gospel to every creature in every land. We are not living up to our calling unless we do. If we cannot go in person, we can support those who do go and thus share in the glorious harvest. We ought to set aside the collections of every fifth Sunday for Foreign Mission. Georgia is the empire state of the Baptists of this country and ought therefore to take the lead in all denominational work. The National Baptist Convention meets in Boston, Mass., next September and I hope that Georgia will be largely represented. Georgia has not honored herself with as large a representation as she ought to. It makes those of us who go feel very small. It has the appearance of non-progressiveness or weak men. Texas sends up three times as many men as Georgia does. I do hope and beseech my brethren, that they take a more active interest in 0013 14this glorious work. I recommend that every 5th Sunday be known all over Georgia as Foreign Mission Day, and that on that day a collection shall be raised in all the churches for Foreign Mission. Let us teach our people that theyowe the heathens a sacred duty.

Womans' Work.

If we would succeed in our work, we must recognize the ability, earnestness, tenderness, devotion and matchless influence of our women. No cause has ever succeeded without the women. They are the mothers of the nations. Jesus had them with him and the Apostles were not without them. They were last at the cross and first at the sepulchre. Jesus showed himself first after his resurrection to the women. Women first preached the resurrection. We must take the women along with us in this glorious. work. Let us give them the most considerate attention and show them the most profound respect. Let us conduct ourselves gentlemanly in their presence. Their pastors at home should co-operate with them, instruct and encourage them in their work at home, and if necessary, help them to get to the Convention. The women have their peculiar notion about things at times, but nine times out of ten they mean well and they are usually right. They will do a mighty work if they are properly encouraged by us. Women are the best friends the church, the mission cause or any other good cause has on earth. They are constant, true and lasting. Now, my dear brethren I wish for you every good. I pray that God may take care of your families and watch over your flock while you are away and that you may return to them safe and sound, encouraged, enthused, electrified and energized for another year's work. I hope our coming here will be a pleasing blessing to this church and entire city. I trust that our conduct in this city will be in keeping with our high calling. I hope our friends will be proud of us when we are gone from here. I pray that and I trust that the usual degrading, obnoxious and impious custom of congregating out our doors, smoking and keeping things in a perpetual confusion will not be witnessed at this session of our Convention.

It is not only unbusiness, but it is irreverence for the cause which we say we have been called of God to represent and it is disloyalty and dishonoring the churches and associations whose representatives we are. We show to the world that we are a set of disorderly men and that we have no respect for that which we say we love. Brethren let us not be guilty of these things. Let us act like earnest God-fearing men who have been saved by the precious blood of Jesus and who are profoundly concerned about the best way of spreading Messiah's glorious kingdom in the world. Our behavior will have much to do with our success in this work. Remember my, Brethren, that this a christian body and that our mission is peace. “Blessed are the peace makers, for they shall be called the children of God.” You have come here to do business for God. Stay in the house, and do it in the spirit of Christ, remembering that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his but as many as are 0014 15led of the Spirit, they are the Sons of God. Let each one of us pledge to do only those things in this Convention and in Augusta that we conscientiously say we believe the Spirit directed us to do. It has been disgustingly annoying to the officers of this Convention to be continually harassed by brethren from the first day the Convention opens to have their certificates signed. Some come in on one train and leave or wants to leave on the next. Some argue that the election of officers is over and therefore they can go. These things greatly distress and discourage me because they show to me that even our leaders have no conception of the sacred object for which we meet, or that their hearts are not right in the sight of God. I hope and pray that none of these things will occur in this session and that this session may mark a happy change. I hope that the bar-rooms will have no cause to regret our departure from this city. And now, my Brethren, in the name of the God of peace, I call the Missionary Baptist Convention of Georgia to order and declare the house ready for business. Let us be polite, kind, gentlemanly and obliging to each other. Let each in honor prefer another and may the God of peace be with you, watch over and keep you for Jesus.