366
NEGRO BAPTISTS
association may do something towards pushing forward
the work of education among our ministers.
It was further your pleasure at the last meeting of
the association to make me your agent on Periodical and
Press, the duties of which position I have found to be
far more onerous than that of the corresponding secreta¬
ryship, in consequence of its being altogether a new enter¬
prise (especially with us), and experience had much to do
in dictating the course necessary to be pursued, none of
us being sufficiently acquainted with it to know what was
really necessary. It was some time after our meeting ad¬
journed before I could do anything as agent, as you made
it my duty to superintend the compiling and printing of
the Minutes. This I acsomplished about the 1st of No¬
vember of last year, and about the 9th of that month I
was able to start out on my first tour. This tour, of neces¬
sity, had to be a short one, (having at that time in my
charge a church with which I had made no arrangement
to sever my connection as pastor, and, indeed, had no in¬
tention of so doing.) I was out about two weeks, and am
glad to say I met with success far beyond my expectations.
But experience taught me in this short tour that it was
impossible for me to get around through the districts in
any reasonable length of time, and attend to my other
business; so I found it necessary to write to the pastors
and other leading brethren and deputize them, asking
their assistance in this work, to which the following
brethren responded very freely: R. Ramsey, J. N. James,
P. Deupree, R. Jones, R. Gray, J. Harvey, C. Maxwell, D.
Abbott, J. Thomas, A. Loggans, A. Henderson, A. Young,
J. Keeton, H. Sykes and George Deupree. With the as¬
sistance of these brethren 1 have collected three hundred
and fifty-five dollars and ninety cents ($355.90). After re¬
turning home from my short tour I was deeply impressed
with the necessity of getting out an issue of the paper,
that we might let the people know something of what we
proposed doing, and after corresponding with some of the
brethren and members of the board, from whom I re¬
ceived encouragement, I determined to do so, notwith¬
standing the future looked somewhat dark, and feeling my
own inability with all the rest, yet I trusted in the Lord,
Permalink: http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/p0gnr
