NORTH 4. m CAROLINA W FOR CHRIST By JOHN E. "WHITE. I. Patriotic. II. Philanthropic. III. Denominational. IV. Christian. To the Baptist People of North Carolina i This tract is written with a four-fold purpose. To give — i. Pleasure and encouragement to those whose hearts are already in the work of State Missions. 2. Information to the many brethren who desire information about the work. 3. Stimulus to those who are only partially interested in State Missions, of whom there are not a few. 4. Light for the great host of Baptists in North Carolina who either know nothing of the work, or, who knowing, care nothing and do nothing. These are four good and convincing arguments for State Missions in North Carolina. The first is good, the second better, the third better still, and the fourth is irresistible. Surely these taken together form an argu- ment which will appeal with practical effect to every Baptist in the State. I. Thz first of these is Patriotic. North Carolinians have alwa5 T s been patriotic. Our State pride is so strong that it smacks of provincialism. Some declare that North Caro- lina is conservative, another says she is not. But whether conservative or radical, she, for the most part, is satisfied to be North Carolina — the home of a true, generous and liberty-loving people. " Tho' scorners may sneer at, And witlings defame her, Yet our hearts swell with gladness, Whenever we name her." The battles that scorched her bosom in the revolution bear testimony to her valor in war. The Mecklenburg Declaration is a witness that her people love liberty, and are patriotic enough to go alone in its defense if needs be. 3 (a). The very reasons that have made them foremost actors in every bloody trial through which our country has passed, the very reasons which fired them to repel invasion from their own borders, must apply with greater force to the effort State Missions is making to drive out wickedness, vice and hurtful error from their midst. It is poor patriotism of which war is the only expression. It is poor patriotism which exerts itself only for political blessings. There are other enemies besside the armies of foreign countries. North Carolina has nothing to fear from the armed powers of Europe. Our real enemy is the armed powers of hell, which be- seige the characters of our people, our public men and our youth, laying snares for our wo- men and debauching our homes. Patriotism of the truest type is not mere love of North Carolina's "rocks and rills, her woods and templed hills." True patriotism is love of her people. " Not country, but countrymen," is the motto of the patriot. Any effort to render one's countrymen happier and better, that improves manhood and womanhood, that drives out vice and puts in virtue, that lights the lamp of knowledge and character in darkened homes and hearts, is pa- triotic. And this is the work of State Missions. The politician may be a patriot, but he gen- erally is not. For politics in these days is a profession of supreme selfishness. The meeting of our Board of Missions is of more real benefit to the people of North Caro- lina, than the convening of a legislature. Dr. C. Durham in the last ten years of his life did a more patriotic, a more truly constructive work for the State than any politician who has held office in the State since the war. (b). The work of State Missions is patriotic in preserving the peace and integrity of our people. Your money goes in taxes to support courts, jails, militia and police. Your money in State WAKE FOLEST COLLEGE Missions makes courts, jails, militia and police unnecessary. The Gospel of Christ preached in every neigh- borhood in North Carolina is worth more in the protection of life and property and the preserv- ation of peace than a standing army in every county. When you help to build a church in a desti- tute community you are building a fortress of truth and righteousness which, without frown- ing, drives off sin and selfishness and helps to build there a State. A Church of Christ is a standing menace to the kingdom of Satan, a rebuke to lawlessness, a deterrent of crime and a most powerful and effective remonstrance against disorder and riot wherever it stands. In the last twenty years our State Missionaries have preached the gospel in over 3,000 destitute places in North Carolina, and have built on mission fields over 500 churches. (c). No more patriotic work could be under- taken than that we are doing in our factory towns and cities. We often boast that our population is homo- genious — native born. The day for such con- gratulation is passing rapidly. The tide of im- migration has turned its flow from the West toward the South. North Carolina is receiving daily a large part of this flood. These foreign people come with foreign customs and foreign ideas. They congregate in our towns aud cities, and every day that leaves them without the gospel of Christ strengthens their power to sow evil seed and to influence, with their poisonous doctrines of irreverence Sabbath desecration, socialism and anarchy, our native-born laboring people with whom they are thrown in factory communities. Our State Mission Board (as the churches enable it) is doing more and more work in the evangelization of these people. This is not the only phase of our factory work which is demanding of State Missions patriotic attention and prayerful study. •**... ...-!./ -./■ Al* There are hundreds of children to be rescued from ignorance and its attendant vices. These children are to be citizens. There is the work of developing the spirit of Christ both in labor and capital. In averting conflict between labor and capital political economy has proven a failure. The principles of Christ alone are suf- ficient for these things. In maintaining mis- sions around our factories we are taking counsel with wisdom, and by this means only can we prevent the lamentable conditions which have brought reproach and disgrace upon other States where the Gospel Economy does not prevail. II. The Second of These Arguments is Philanthropic. Philanthropy is a fellow feeling for one's fel- low man. In Titus 3d chapter and 4th verse it is written: "But after that the kindness and philanthropy of God our Saviour appeared." That means Atonement — Christ putting Him- self in our place. Fellow feeling. Philanthropy is better than what we call charity. It aims at the best in man and the best for man. That is only the base counterfeit of philan- thropy that expends its strength on the tem- poral and material interests of people. True philanthropy is thoroughly Christian, which, while it labors to clothe the naked and feed the hungry, yet mostly strives to remind the object of its care that "man shall not live by bread alone." There are hundreds of places in North Caro- lina where the people are stricken with a ca- lamity — the calamity of mourning without a comforter, and of the spirit of nakedness and heaviness because they know not to praise and worship God. The program of State Missions is, by the preaching of the Gospel and the building of churches, to comfort all that mourn: to give unto them " beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." The very same spirit that would make it im- possible to refuse a loaf of bread to a distressed and famished woman beggiug at our door ought to shame us out of a half-hearted and grudging support of the work for the Godless and church- less in the great Mission fields of our State. We have our pastors, who minister to us and instruct us in the word. We have our own churches in which we worship God, our Sun- day-schools for the study of the Bible. We rejoice for ourselves and our children for such blessed privileges. Does it not prove us unworthy of such advantages if we are not willing to assist the work which gives the Bible, the preacher and the church to our own people with which they are not able to provide them- selves? Does it not appear to you that as a man — as a woman, not to say as a Christian — with a man's heart and the heart of a woman — the need of our destitute Mission fields is a matter of concern and interest to you, and that the work of State Missions deserves your practical sympathy? Do you sympathize with the orphan? Does it really appeal to your heart to be told that there are over 500 orphan children in North Carolina without a home or a place to live? One of the sure ways to increase the capacity of our Orphanage is to give to State Missions. Our Orphanage at Thomasville is the fruit of wiseState Mission work in a very striking sense. It had its conception in an Association wrung from error and sin by State Mission's in the last twenty years. It was born in an Association (the Tar Riven in which to-day over $2,000 are being expended in State Mission work. Seven of the buildings at Thomasville which shelter the fatherless children there were erected by the gifts of men in that Association. He who gives to State Missions, besides con- tributing to the hungry and unfed souls of hundreds who have neither Gospel nor church, most surely puts bread into the mouths of hun- gry children and clothes upon their backs, and helps to fit them for life. This is Philanthrophy — and at the same time Christianity. III. The Third of These Arguments is Denominational. If Baptists do not look after Baptist interests, we cannot expect other people to do so. The history of the past teaches two very important lessons — God reliance and self reliance It is proper to appeal to Baptists for the support of Baptist work. State Missions has been, and still is, the chief agency of North Carolina Bap- tists for publishing Baptist views, promulgating Baptist principles and establishing the Truth as Baptists hold it. From the first, our State Mis- sionaries have been generally men of the type that did not shun to declare the whole counsel of God without fear or. favor. In discussing Baptist growth in North Carolina, let no Bap- tist forget the rock from which he is hewn, and that the only pledge we have for. future growth and progress is in the maiutainance in our- selves and the transmission of it to our children of this same spirit which is fostered by State Missions. Baptists in North Carolina owe very little to the help of outside circumstance. What we are as a people, we have become be- cause we placed loyalty to Christ, and obedi- ence to His revealed Truth, above social advan- tage, political power and every other consider- ation of pride and policy. What we have, we have won — not by fortune or subsidy, but by dogged firmness and faith in God. Now, if our forefathers gladly suffered shame and imprisonment rather than yield their right to hold and preach certain New Testament doctrines, shall we in North Carolina to-day think lightly of the maiutainance of a supre- macy which they so nobly and so dearly won? If "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," was thus held dear by them, shall the establishment of that truth where it is not known, or where it is loosely held, be less dear to us? (a. ) State Missions Promote Doctrinal Sound- ness. Oue of the principles underlying our State Mission work is that every inch of ground in North Carolina where teachings of the New Testament are not obediently held and obediently preached, is missionary ground for Baptists. Our field is just this large and no larger. "With malice toward none, but with charity for all," holding fast the faith as God gives us to see it in State Missions, we aim at noth- ing less than the prevalence, sooner or later, of the Truth as it is in the New Testament in every nook and corner of North Carolina. Our State Mission Board is not composed of compromisers or trucklers. We nail this to our mast head: "Either^ very man ought to be a Baptist, or else no man ought to be a Baptist." Baptist are either right or they are wrong. If they are right, then, since every man ought to be right, every man ought to be a Baptist. If, on the other hand Baptists are wrong, then, since no man ought to be wrong, no man ought to be a Baptist." And we insist that there is no escape from this alternative. And we appeal to every Baptist who believes Bap- tists are right that he ought to be agressive in propagating the faith himself, personally, and through State Missions. The influence of State Missions is to discour- age among our people all prating about any unity of denominations which is secured by concession or compromise. The unity of " one Lord, one faith, one baptism," is the only unity desired by Baptists. Our State Missionaries are not commissioned to talk about uniformity in creed and practice in the different denominations in North Caro- Una. There is something better than unifor- mity for which we stand. We make the same demand on others we make on ourselves, and that is conformity, not to our view for our sakes, but to the view and teaching of the New Testa- ment for Christ's sake. This is the only safe ground for Christians in North Carolina. We rejoice, yea! and will rejoice wherever and by whomsoever any part of Christ's truth is held. And we grieve and protest whenever and by whomsoever any part of it is dishonored or repudiated. Our State Mission work is a work of agres- sion. It is the agressive work of our denomi- nation in North Carolina. Our State Missionaries are preaching Baptist doctrines and insisting on Baptist principles more constantly and more vigorously than any other class of our pastors. On many of our State Mission fields the Missionaries are fight- ing practically the same battle Paul Palmer and the brethren of his day faught in 1730 — en- during in many instances the same hardships, encountering the same odds and struggling against the same opposition. It seems to be a fact, commonly agreed to, that our denomina- tional vigor and life has always iucreased or decreased in proportion to our fidelity to Bap- tist doctrines and our zeal in preaching them. So constantly has our State Mission work had reflex influence on our denominational life in the maintainance of sound doctrine among us. The churches in the towns and at the centres where the almost inevitable tendency is to let up on vigorous preaching of distinctive doc- trines, are stimulated by a vigorous State Mis- sion work, the echoes from which tell of a struggle for the truth against error, prejudice and persecution. And on the Denomination at large the effect is no less marked. State Mis- sions promotes loyalty, stiffens the back-bone, and keeps living in our people that old pioneer spirit which we forget always at our peril. (b.) State Missions a Prime Factor in our Numerical and Financial Growth. That the Baptists of North Carolina are numerically great is a fact of common acknowledgement and remark. It is a fact of which no unseemly boast should be made, but which very properly should excite our gratitude to God and encour- age us in our present labors. Almost miraculous it seems to us now, that Baptists in their early history in North Caro- lina managed to exist at all, so fierce and pow- erful were the forces with which they conten- ded. What rash prophet, looking at the mere handful of men and women who were all there were of us then, would have predicted that the day would come when the Baptists would in North Carolina nearly outnumber all other Denominations combined? The latest statistics published by the Gov- ernment, gives as the sum total of all church members in the State 673,795. Of these, 326,- 971 are Baptists. According to the last census, the Missionary Baptists in Wake County alone, outnumber by 167 members all the Episcopalians, Catholics and Jews in the whole State of North Carolina. The regular or Missionary Baptists of the whole State are more than twenty-four times as numerous as the anti mission Baptists, more than thirty-five times as many as the Episco- palians, eight times as many as all sorts of Presbyterians and 16,962 more than all sorts of Methodists, white and colored. Now, with these facts before us, look back just 60 years. In 1830 there were only 15,000 Baptists in the State. In 60 years we have in- creased over 300,000 souls in membership. The question arises: " What denominational instrumentality has done most to bring about this phenomenal increase in growth?" Un- hesitatingly any well informed Baptist will say, "State Missions." The State Mission Board was organized in prosecuted only feebly, tor lack ol denomina- tional co-operation and means. At no time under this Board were there more than five Missionaries. In i860 the Board was reorganized under the name of "Board of Missions" and a Cor- responding Secretary appointed. For five years, following the chaos and confusion of the war, almost nothing was done. So that the real work of organized State Mission effort may be dated from 1870. In the ten years that followed, under the leadership of Drs. J. D. Hufham and J. B. Richardson as Secretaries, State Mission work was pushed with a vigor unknown before. And in that ten years the denomination nearly doubled its white membership, by increasing from 40 000 to 75,000. Six new Associations were organized, made necessary by enlarge- ments mainly through our State Mission work. From 1880 to 1890 the Board increased the number of its Missionaries from 23 in 1880 to 108 in 1S90. Under the leadership of Jno. E. Ray and Dr. C. Durham, Secretaries, it pushed its work into 32 of the 39 Associations connected with the Convention. In these ten years the denomination again doubled its (white) mem- bership, going from 75,000 (1880) to 150,000 (1890). Fifteen new Associations were orga- nized, in which in 1890 there were 305 churches and 33,209 members. From 767 churches in 1880 we weut to over 1100 in 1890. And as we have grown in numbers we have also increased in financial strength and benevo- lence. By the wise policy of the Convention the Board of Missions and Sunday-schools has charge also of Home and Foreign Mission col- lections, and in enlarging State Missious con- tributions the gifts to every other object has been increased. As facts and figures are the best foundation for opinions about our growth and development in benevolence, the Treasurer's report for the past eleven years are tabulated for the encour- agement of all who are interested in State Missions: g SO O tf o/.5 # % w W m 2. - • £■ » 2 ' 2.S a i i _ n> _ o a, n p3 p 0^ S' B S'P o' o" i ID Y 1 » 3 cn «e €©" -*i to Cn Oo Cn H 00 _, On 00 On o CO oo no o vO On Co i ^C ON -P* O vO no J> On v£> 00 " «S VO ' Cn VD ^J -*o: O H J3N Oo o> (0 vO M Go I M3 Cn ^j Cn b 6o 00 CO 4> 4> On 00 -pi- I Cn O 00 no 00 I Co ON Co ^r Co On ' Oo Oo 4^ Oo ^> Oo Cn OO 00 1 ON CO O -P- CO CO CO Oo On i O vO ON On On On On \£> Cn O O O J> m I Cn -P* O O to <-H ' -P^ ON VO O ■P- J> -P>- «ft ■fe% OO Cn Cn Cn Cn On \o CO H ' On oo " On H On oo - 10 Oo Co CO 1 vo Cn *>-< "on o On 6o VO O I to v£> ON Cn CO o Oo ^J W OO ^D Oo ^J Oo MD O On m o\ Co ON OO On 1 5 M M ■-■■ ON o nO ■ 1 CO M i On \0 o> oo ^1 o> 4s. I O CO Co CO no OO j> On -P^- O \£> -~~1 Cn Cn On H O "-J -P* o ON M no O On CO 1 O O O •p* O *» •^* oo np 00 O Cn V* £0 4> ^ CO Oo Oo -P>- vO O I O ^O 00 -Px O O On O 1 ^J O o> 00 Ja. Cn O On On | -p» -J -J • MD "on ~o ^J I nO 1 & -P» 1 on -O no a^ ON *. W j oo On On O On O 1 v£) 00 ON O O 1 O 1 to O ' N oo ON Oo On Oo 14 From the view of this progress, every Bap- tist should turn with swelling heart to God, who has led us through ail to all we have grown to be. Nor is this progress ended. The material prosperity of the State, and its large increase in population is opening wider doors of oppor- tunity for our State Mission work. We who are living now have it in our power to determine what North Carolina will be denominationally and religiously one hundred years hence. Whether the people of our State shall be Chris- tians and whetberthey shall have a Christianity that recognizes no authority but the word of God; whether or not their churches shall ac- knowledge no head but Christ, and whether or not they shall know no baptism but the burial of the believer in water, in perpetual commemo- ration of the burial and resurection of the great Head of the church; all remains for the 150,000 white Baptists already in Christ's Churches throughout North Carolina to say. The history of State Missions will in these years to come, as it has been in the years gone, most largely determine the history of North Carolina Baptists. IV. The Fourth of These Arguments is Christian. This is the last and greatest of all. North Carolina for Christ ! is an echo from Calvary, the call of an unsatiated Gospel. If you are a Baptist and a truly converted man or woman, you must have it in the creed of your heart. (a.) State Missions fosters the spirit of Mis- sions, which is the spirit of Christ. An anti mission man is an anti-Christian man. An anti-mission church is essentially opposed to the manifest teaching of the New Testiment. There is no room for argument on this point. The denial of Missions is nothing less, in the sight of God and men, than iufidelity. The truth that the Gospel is a Missionary Gospel, meant for all men and for none so much as ' 15 for those who do not have it, is not sec- ondary, something which may or may not be inferred by Christians after they have ac- cepted Christianity. But it is primary, central, vital, interwoven with the very heart of Chris- tianity, part and parcel of its life. You can- not really accept it at all, unless you accept this with it. State Missions is the accent North Carolina Baptists put on this great fact. The spirit of Missions in the New Testameut had its first expression in what we call State Missions. State Missions, therefore, are funda- mentally Christian, because (b. ) It is Scriptural. Andrew found his own brother Simon and said unto him: " We have found the Messias." And he brought him to Jesus. In State Missions we are finding our own brethren and bringing them to Jesus. For the advancement of State Missions in his day Paul, while a Missionary among the heath- en, said "to the Jew (State Missions) first and also to the Greek "(Foreign Missions). And again "I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kindsmen, according to the flesh." And it was our Divine Master who said to his people: "Ye shall be witnesses of me, both in Jerusalem (City Missions) and all Judea, (State Missions) and Samaria (the States around — Home Missions) and unto the uttermost parts of the earth, (Foreign Missions). In those last great hours, after His resurrec- tion and just before His ascension, the Master said that the Gospel "should be preached in His name among all nations beginning at Jeru- salem. State Missions is the basis of all Missions, not only in the scripture, but also in common sense and experience. There is and can be, in no sense, antagonism between the claims of State and Foreign Mis- sions. If State Missions did not contribute to i6 the spread of the Gospel in all the world, the work would be worse than a failure. But so true is it that a vigorous Home Mission work alone can make possible a vigorous Foreign Mission work that a man who is unfriendly to our State Board of Missions and its work, is striking a blow at Foreign Missions. It was this view that Dr. Matthew T. Yates expressed when he said: "The hope of the heathen world under God depends upon well organized and well trained churches at home." It was this same view that Dr. Austin Phelps expressed when he said: " If I were a mission- ary in China, my first and most important prayer every morning should be for Missions in America for the sake of China." . It has been truly said: " Five hundred years of time in the process of the world's salvation may depend on the next twenty years of Uni- ted States history." May we not say, with some reason too, as we look back over the last twenty years of wonder- ful progress in Missions, and as we look at our present rapidly growing churches and Foreign Mission spirit, that five hundred years of time in the process of the salvation of some heathen countries may depend largely under God on the next twenty years of North Carolina Bap- tist Mission work ? North Carolina has contributed more to For- eign Missions than any of her sister States in the Southern Baptist Convention. Not in mouej', but in men— in the life of Yates and the thirty-five men and women she has given for a lost world. And it is thought that this has been the outcome most largely from a Mission spirit begotten in our churches and among our people by the emphasis we have put on State Missions since 1840. (c.) State Missions appeals to us as a Chris- tian work, because in North Carolina it is the Gospel to the poor. "Tell John that the poor have the Gospel preached to them," said Christ. This was the sign by which John was to know He was indeed the Messiah. And by this sign we know that State Missions is the work of Christ, and, there- fore, demands the support of those who love Him. A certain class of people have charged it as a reproach to us that we were poor, and that our churches were filled with the poor people of the State. A Bishop in New York recently said: "The Lord has given us the rich." The Baptists have another kind of boast: " The Lord has given us the poor." That we have them in great numbers cannot be denied, nor can it be questioned that we came by them honestly. We have followed the examples of John, of Jesus and of all the Apostles, and preached the Gospel to the poor, all back of the mountain sides, down the valleys, along the creeks we have gone preaching the Gospel. God has been with us and the great common people have turned to us. State Missions is the work of preaching the Gospel to the destitute of our State. It is, therefore, in the name of Him who had not where to lay His head that we come to His people in behalf of State Missions, the neg- lected and the needy of our State. (d) State Missions presents an irresistable argument for its support to Christians, because it brings to unsaved men and women the knowl- edge of a Saviour; to the poor and destitute of many communities the advantages of a Sunday- school for themselves and their children, the blessings of a New Testament Church, and to our State the Kingdom of God, which is righteousness, joy and peace. We submit three questions to the consciences of each of our brethren and sisters who are members of Baptist Churches. ist. Are You a Christian? Have you been born again? Is Christ your dersonal Saviour? Do you feel that what He has brought to your life is its greatest|blessing ? If you are a Christian indeed, must it not be true of you that you want every other man to be a Christian? Here in our own State there are over one million souls lost, without Christ. Thousands of these, if saved at all, will have to be reached through the instrumentality of State Missions Who can Christ depend on to help in this work if He cannot depend upon you? 2d. Are You a Baptist? Do you belong to a church which has no creed outside of the New Testament and which acknowledges no Head or Authority but Christ ? If so, do you not feel that the work of State Missions deserves your support? How much do you love Baptist doctrines and Baptist prin- ciples? The answer to this question very largely will be answered by the amount of your means you give to support the work which propogates these doctrines and establishes the churches to which these great truths are com- mitted. jd. Do You Pray ? If so, do you not sometimes say: " Thy King- dom Come:' ? And do you not mean that you want it to come in North Carolina? State Mis- sions is helping to bring that Kingdom- has brought it to hundreds of places already, and has 87 devoted servants of the Gospel at work this year to bring it to other places in our beloved State. One of our Missionaries recently went to a Cross-roads place in Ashe County to preach the Gospel. It was a place of hardened sin ners. No church. The only public places were a still-house and a bar-room. He secured per mission to preach the Gospel of Christ in the empty still-house. He told them the story of the love of Christ— that old, old story, so full of sweetness and power. By degrees, he got a few of the people to hear his message. By degrees he won their hearts for the Lord. He 19 paptized the bar-keeper and the still-owner iu j.he spring branch that ran near. And then, laving risen to newness of life, they went back md tore down the still house and bar-room, eaving only the four rough rock cornerstones. 3n these they built a Baptist Church — and :here to-day the white banner of Irnmanuel floats over a redeemed neighborhood. The Kingdom of God came there. Oh! if the brethren and sisters could know all the triumphs of State Missions, could see the field and its needs, could see the wide door of opportunity opened to us, it would require no begging or pleading to secure the money to send laborers into the rich harvest, and in a generation we would bring North Carolina to Christ, because we would bring Christ to North Carolina. TO PASTORS. If you can use this tract to aid the wor among your people, drop me a postal statir r the number desired, and they will be sent gratis, postpaid, at once. JNO. E. WHILE, 1897. Cor. Secretary. Itein. U W^£