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DO NOT FORGET. PASTORS, deacons, and all the good and wise in the churches, who are looked to for counsel in regard to making wills, surely will not forget to recommend the HALF MILLION FREEDMAN'S FUND of the American Baptist Home Mission Society. God makes us to hear the pleading voices of four millions in the South, and of the uncounted millions of Africa beyond, who need, above all things, a well trained ministry to guide them heavenward. Hence our plan is,-- FIRST, to attempt the founding and endowing of one first-class training-school for preachers and pious teachers in each Southern State. SECOND, to enter upon the training of a permanent fund of $500,000 for this purpose, to be expended in grounds, buildings, and endowments. THE REPUBLIC OF MEXICO, With its eight millions of Spanish-speaking Roman Catholics, is pleading for light. A Seminary to educate a Native Mexican Ministry, and help to sustain our promising Missions in that land are greatly needed. Who will give us $20,000 to found a Baptist Theological School in Mexico? THIRD, to employ all proper means to attach the hearts of the colored people to those schools as rapidly as possible. After an extensive trip through the South, I am convinced that no work of philanthropy, to work of patriotism, no work of Christianity, can surpass that involved in the planting of these schools. Love, not for the blacks alone, but for the whites, requires it! $10,000 will endow a teachership, $20,000 will found a school. Edward Lathrop, D.D., upon returning from a Southern tour, writes: "DEAR BRO. SIMMONS--I would say emphatically, throw all your strength into schools for the education of a competent ministry. On this point I am afraid our churches are not half aroused. It is my deliberate and firm conviction that, if we fail in this, our work at the South, among the colored population, will come to a disastrous end. This, in so far as the Freedmen are concerned, is the great work of the Home Mission Society. We must educate a ministry for this people, or abandon the field!" THE DESTITUTION IS APPALLING. Consider the fact that in the single State of South Carolina there are, according to the census of 1860, four hundred and twelve thousand colored people,--and, as is estimated, full one hundred thousand more blacks than whites! Consider the fact that of one hundred and sixty men in the South Carolina Legislature, over one hundred are colored men, many of whom can neither read nor write! And in that State we have a noble school property. An able commercial writer says: "Already the Gulf States have a black population exceeding that of the whites perhaps more than two to one; while in places, the proportion is as much as fifty to one." HOW YOU MAY HELP. If you desire to be your own executor, and make sure to the Freedmen's Fund of the Society a part, or the whole of your estate, while living, and yet draw the interest of it during your lifetime, you can pay over the principal, and take from the Society a bond in return for the payment of the interest. We have issued such bonds--one for $10,000--on each of which we pay interest regularly when desired by the donor. If you prefer to give by bequest, which is less sure (as wills may be broken, say in your will: "I give and bequeath to the American Baptist Home Mission Society........dollars for the Freedmen's Fund of said Society. (If real estate, describe it carefully.) Three witnesses should state: "We witness to this instrument, consisting of one sheet [or two], as the las twill and testament of-, by his [or her] request, in his [or her] presence, and in presence of each other." The witnesses need not see or know a word of the contents of the will. Without the generous gifts and prayers of the benevolent, we at the Rooms are powerless. Be sure, both in your will, and in sending offerings to these Rooms, to write "For Freeman's Fund." If not, your money does not go to the Freedmen, but to the general work of the Society. For Freedmen's Education and Southern Work, address, REV. JAMES B. SIMMONS, Cor. Sec'y, Room 19, No 39 Park Row, New York City. Make all drafts payable to the order of the Treasurer of the American Baptists Home Mission Society.
