There shall be an annual meeting of the Convention, at such time and place as shall be decided, a sermon shall be preached by a person appointed at a previous annual meeting, and a. Davis, the following program was adopted to take precedence over the regular Rules of Order, throughout the session in the manner of substitution. The proceedings of the Executive Board during the conventional year were read, together with some reflections.
The minutes of the evening meetings of the previous days were read, corrected and accepted. Smothers said she was pleased to see recognition from the state convention. In the following, the minutes of the previous meeting are not recorded until the end of the meeting.
Resolved that we, as Ministers of the Baptist State Convention, will first practice, preach, teach and . Smith waits; elected Seeretary, by proposal, the special collection for the sonest western part of the state which he presented to Elder O. brothers.
On motion, the donation he has made only at the quarterly meeting of the Board of Directors or through the Sup't of Missions shall be without ease.
REPORT OF CONVENTION MISSION
E. PERPENER
Institutions of learning have been the great factor in the preparation of all nations for their great work. The early founders of this government recognized the importance of good institutions when they established Harvard and Yale, also the Baptists of the early days when they established the great Brown University of Providence, R. Now we have over 100 white institutions, many of are open to our colored youth, and something near 25 higher institutions founded especially for OUI' race.
These schools, which almost represent, have been established for us through the providence of God, by our friends to the north. From this we have received countless blessings and they have been bright lights that have led us through the darkness. As the years come and go, he will value this society more and more, and from us as a race dollars of gratitude will flow into her treasury that she will ever be able to uplift the downtrodden.
In this state we have the Bishop Baptist College, at Marshall, conducted by tIn Home Mission Society, valued at about $55,000; costing society $5,000 per annum, besides repairs, &c. These schools must be placed in a safe state of operation, and equipped as first-class academies, supplying the great Bishop, for it will take countless years to make these first-class colleges. We can make them first class high centuries, and it will be a shame to us as Baptists if we do not unite and stand in these schools until they are what they ought to be.
We recommend that, as a state convention, we ask all churches for a collection for our schools, that these collections be divided as follows: one-fifth for Bishop, two-fifths for Hearne, and two-fifths for Seguin. We recommend that immediately upon publication of this report, someone be appointed to make pledges for our schools and colleges, with pledges paid in the next conventional year. We also recommend the establishment of a general secretary of education, whose role is to collect these pledges and raise funds for educational purposes.
We also recommend that this General Secretary should not be connected with any of the schools, but should be a friend to all.
G. DAVIS,
F. SMITH,
T. PARDEE,
From this it was paid for the work of the mission in the country and abroad, the building of the church, etc. The money reported to the comptroller after he closed his books for the Waco Convention will be taken up in next year's minutes. Griggs, superintendent of missions" of the state of Texas, found it correct and in accordance with the above report.
H. SHAW,
I, the undersigned, hereby declare that we have carefully examined the detailed report of Elder A. Having been invited to read a paper before you on the present demands for a pious and educated ministry, I have, with no small degree of reluctance, and a keen sense of the all-important importance of the subject, offer some ideas that we believe can be developed through general discussion. In the history of the Baptist Church, the pastors were men of long life (lived very long), and outlived their day, and therefore could not keep up with the constant march of progress, and the eternal is sought in the laboratory of thought al scientific, and while it is a fact that we owe much to this class of mcn, old brothers Moses, Jack and Jim, for our success as a denomination boasting one and a half million communicants and two hundred thousand ministers, as just represented at the St.
It seems to me that the man in the pulpit who is aware of his immorality should be immediately suspended (and I mean by the neck), and the church that turns a blind eye to the vileness of its priests should be sold to the sheriff. sale and door locked. It seems to me that the true spirit of a minister should be to respect his profession and not demand that the profession respect him, and when he has dishonored his profession, resign and go away until he is hissed and purged. Of two evils, a man without literary attainments is preferable to an educated fool, a braggart, and a villain, with whom your daughter and son would be in danger if each of them came under his influence.
The ignorance of two decades is over, and we now live in the beautiful morning of books and letters, schools and colleges, and fair boys and danghers, who, even while 'urebin~, ~as the teacher-the minister made a mistake has. in his morning service. The very fact that a minister has a congregation of five hundred of good common sense, and a hundred of this school ehilnren with their teacher, is an urgent demand for more light in the pulpit. There are times when the laity need help with spiritual sandballs and difficult questions that arise in the course of everyday life, and in this place it is the pastor's duty at all times as he will be asked, and when he is fit to to come to his shoulders and meet in a Christlike manner, meek and intellectual, all matters of the day relating to isms, labor and capital, poverty and wealth, wages and industry, the present necessities and the coming demands of his herd, and has such a collection of general information at hand at hi~.
A kind of food taken constantly disturbs the digestion and assimilation, and is finally rejected, so that various texts on the same subject will bring dis:,;mentions, and even tremors among the members, though they have been silent for years - because the world is progressing and the ignorant side cannot hold down the enlightened side. But with the minister it is the Bible first, last, and all the time, and he who tells the story of the Bible has much to do with its sweetness. Many a beautiful pattern is spoiled in the hands of a tailor, so that a sinner is hardened by a poor representation of Christ and His claims.
The amount of mental development that is currently evolving is pushing ignorance before it, and as a warning, we may say, for the sake of the Baptist, do not hinder its dawn. Go to school, though you are old; educate your children and the fiery noon of intelligent ehurehs and pastors and decOl·us will soon be here. We now have 2,000,000 who can read and write, and we number our professional men and women by scores and hundreds.
Now we have more than forty institutions of higher education, from the classical walls of which hundreds of young men and women go out every year. Never in the world's history has a race of men made so great a pl'Ogress in so short a time.
