Page:The Afro-American Press.djvu/260

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
252
THE AFRO-AMERICAN PRESS.

prominent individuals. He preached one of the re-opening sermons at Shiloh, and also at the First African Baptist church. He has frequently spoken at the Baptist Ministers' Conference, which is composed of the leading white ministers of the denomination. The paper he read before this body, entitled 'The Mission of the Negro Baptists,' received the highest praise from the Conference and the press. On May 10, 1889, Dr. H. L. Wayland, editor of The National Baptist, says: 'I take great pleasure in introducing to all members of the Baptist denomination, and to other friends of a good cause, the Rev. C. C. Stumm, pastor of the Union Baptist church in this city. Mr. Stumm studied at Roger Williams University, at Nashville, and, more recently, at Boston, Mass. He is a highly esteemed member of the Baptist Ministers' Conference, and is a faithful and wise pastor and a good preacher of the Word. The Conference has commended him and his church, in their present enterprise of building, to all our brethren. I sincerely hope that his appeal for aid will meet with a favorable response.'" He was several times president of Baptist conventions and associations, and has always acted promptly and well on these occasions.

Mr. Stumm's success in the ministry has not interfered at all with his progress in the glorious work of journalism, as will be seen in the following account we give of it: His career as an editor was begun in 1873, while he was a student at Nashville, Tenn. Pursuant to an adjournment, the Baptist Convention met with the First Baptist church of that city, and an editor of one of the papers asked the pastor, Rev. N. G. Merry, to have some one appointed as reporter, and the choice fell on Mr. Stumm, who accepted the position with some diffidence, but succeeded in reporting the proceedings of the meeting, though not in the most satisfactory way to all.

Subsequently, he became a writer for The Standard, a