With this number, the American Missionary passes into the hands of Rev. C. C. Painter, as Editor and Business Manager. Mr. Painter was born in the South, educated at the North, where he was for several years a pastor, and more recently a Professor of Theology in Fisk University, and connected with its financial management. He brings to the work a ripe scholarship, the pen of a ready writer, and a deep interest in the varied work in which the Association is engaged.

The retirement of the Rev. Geo. M. Boynton, who, for several years, has acted as Editor of the Missionary, is felt to be a great loss to the Association. His peculiar skill in editing, his facility in writing, and his quick apprehension of current events bearing on our work, enabled him to give to our magazine a freshness and attractiveness it never before had attained. Mr. Boynton’s usefulness as a member of our Executive Committee makes his loss to us the greater. In his new pastorate in Jamaica Plain, Boston, he bears with him the warmest affection and best wishes of the officers of the Association.

As we make our bow after the above graceful introduction by our honored Senior Secretary, we are conscious that all eyes are turned regretfully toward the departing, rather than hopefully to the incoming, Editor. We are in the position similar to that of a new minister, who is told as he makes his first pastoral visits, “We never expect to love another pastor as we loved Mr. B.” We are glad for all that makes our position difficult, and suggest as the only remedy for the loss the Missionary must otherwise sustain in the retirement of Mr. Boynton, that all who feel it, shall make the appropriate effort to prevent it. Let our teachers and missionaries understand, that they must come to the rescue by prompt and faithful reports of every phase of their work; giving us rich material from which to select what, from our stand-point, appears the thing to be said at any given time. Let Pastors and Superintendents, and other co-laborers, feel that they must stand between this work and loss, and double their diligence, and quicken their zeal, in keeping their churches and schools informed and interested; and, finally, let all who have felt an impulse to give more, show their appreciation of the late Editor’s good work by such an increase of gifts, as shall meet the urgent demands on our Treasury; and in reporting all this, we promise the most interesting numbers of the Missionary yet published. Thus:

We have received a copy of the new map of Central and Southern Africa, published by the A. B. C. F. M. As an outline map for chapel purposes, we believe it unsurpassed in beauty and cheapness. The price, on paper, is 75c.; on cloth, $1.25; to be had of C. N. Chapin, 14 Congregational House, Boston.

Dr. T. Thornton Macklin, who for several years was connected with the Blantyre Mission in the region of the Nyassa, is making a brief visit to this country, and gave us much valuable information about methods of work in Equatorial Africa, in an hour’s interview at our office. Dr. Macklin is anxious to return to Africa and enter upon pioneer work, such as that proposed by Mr. Arthington to the A. M. A., in the Nile basin.

We are glad to know that Dr. G. B. Willcox, whose presence and counsels are sadly missed in our Committee meetings, loses none of his enthusiasm for the American Missionary Association and its work, because of his new home and new duties. At a recent meeting in Dr. Noble’s church in Chicago, he read an address which we wish could be put into the hands of every Christian, and of every citizen, in the land. It is too long to print in our pages, and too consecutive to dismember without marring. We hope he may have calls to deliver it before the other churches of that city, and of other cities, East and West.

We fear that a fact, stated by Mrs. Hill in our last number, has not been fully taken in by our readers. Writing from Marion, Ala., of her work among the children, she said, incidentally, and most of us read it without comprehending it, “The girls’ sewing-class has sent $38 to the Mendi Mission.”

The “Girls’ Sewing-Class!” “Thirty-eight Dollars!” Sunday-school workers of New England, think what that means! We venture to say there is scarce a Sunday-school connected with one of our churches in New England where the same amount of money would cost a girls’ sewing-class one-half the self-denial and labor that is represented by this $38 for the Mendi Mission. And it came from a colored girls’ sewing-class!

Some time since, a request came from a teacher in one of our institutions to the Sunday-school of the Second Congregational Church in Rockville, Conn., that it should raise $70 for a promising young man who, for lack of it, must leave his studies. The matter was brought before the school and laid over for consideration. On the next Sabbath, a class of young men, every one of whom was earning his own living, stated that it would assume the responsibility for the whole amount. To raise this money did not hurt them; on the contrary, it did them as much good as it did the one who received it. What if this same spirit should become epidemic in our schools!

The Sunday-school at Kenosha, Wis., when its pastor read to it President Cravath’s article in the October Missionary, entitled “What shall we do?” promptly responded by sending a check for $50. Pastors, Sunday-school superintendents and teachers, it is not a difficult thing to do, but a most easy, and as blessed as easy, to enlist your young people in this beneficent work; beneficent not alone in relation to the ignorant negroes, but to your own young people. The needs of our work are great, but the need that our Sunday-school children and young people be educated out of narrow, selfish views of life, is even more urgent. Let this double education go forward steadily and by organized effort; thus shall sower and reaper rejoice together, and it will be difficult to tell the one from the other in their mutual joy and benefit, for both are reapers of such sowing.

The Selma, Ala., Daily Times notes the fact that our Field Secretary, Dr. Roy, preached in the First Presbyterian Church of that city in the morning, and the Rev. H. S. DeForest in the evening, of a recent Sabbath, and says that more than usual interest was manifested in both services. Also, in a kindly notice of the Fifth Annual Convention of the Congregational Churches of Alabama, convened in that city, it says: “This church is doing a great work for the education and religious culture of the colored people in Alabama, and the other Southern States.”

Dr. R. S. Rust, Secretary of the M. E. Freedmen’s Aid Society, in his Twelfth Annual Report of the work of that Society, speaks with a just pride of the twenty distinctive colored schools established in the South, with an aggregate of 2,510 pupils: of these, 453 are classed as Biblical, 20 law, 60 medical, 74 collegiate, 270 academic, 1,020 normal, 242 intermediate, and 371 primary.

We congratulate him and his church on the good work done, and to be done.

Prof. J. W. Randolph, of Waco College, Texas, which, we understand, is a newly-projected school, to be under management of the colored people, announces his purpose of publishing a new music and hymn-book for and by his own people; and so the genius of this people is reaching out into new fields of effort.

Facts are facts positeevely, as Dr. John Brown’s Scotch beadle would say, and will assert and establish themselves if we can only have patience in well-doing. The professor of Greek in one of the State Colleges of the South said to us, some months since: “I spent a day in Fisk University, and as I am, and have been all my life, a teacher of Greek, was curious to see what the negro could do with that language; and, sir, I should be most proud and happy if I had twenty boys in my College who could recite Greek as I heard that number of boys and girls reciting it in that school.”

The teacher of these boys and girls was a young colored woman, 22 years of age, herself a graduate of the school in which she was then teaching.

Among the many indications of the growing interest taken by the best class of Southern people in the educational work of our schools, we note the frequent kindly notices, given in the daily papers of the cities in which our schools are located, of anything that concerns the work. We clip the following from the Morning Ledger, of Memphis, in appreciative mention of the lecture course before Le Moyne Institute of that city: “It is an encouraging sign of the times when such men as Dr. Maury, Judge Morgan, Col. Eaton, and Judge Hammond give their time and talents for the instruction and elevation of the colored race, especially when these people show a disposition and a capacity for moral and intellectual improvement. It is an indisputable evidence of the amiable relations of the two races, and gives assurance that the traces of the war, and its bad passions, are wearing out, and that we have entered upon a peaceful, law-abiding era, with a good basis for solid prosperity.”

At the close of the last lecture, delivered by Rev. Mr. Trible, Col. L. B. Eaton arose, and after reference to the success of the course and its good results to the community, proposed, as appreciative of the lecture and expressive of their interest in the object, that they should take a collection, which resulted in over $30 for the library of the school.

We learn that these lectures have been prepared with the same care as if intended for the most cultivated white audiences, and without condescension or patronage, were delivered as if addressed to an audience of young men and women without any hint, direct or implied, of race, color, or previous condition.

GEN. GRANT’S RECEPTION AT STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY.

Just as the Missionary was going to press, we received a letter from Dr. Roy, who is now in New Orleans, giving a brief sketch of the visit of Gen. Grant to the Straight University. We have also a more full account in the New Orleans Times, but we can offer our readers in this number only the shorter narrative. Dr. Roy writes:

“We gave a reception to Gen. Grant in the chapel. Flags were displayed at the front and behind the platform, with the big map on the wall and a placard ‘Our Country.’ The school and the patrons filled the hall. Prof. McPherron led his scholars in some exquisite classic music; Prof. Alexander made the welcoming address in behalf of the Straight University. Gen. Grant responded in one of his laconic and fitting speeches, which was greatly satisfactory to the colored people. Gen. Grant said:

“‘It is a good sign to see such a University as this attended by colored people who were for so long deprived of any such advantage. Those who have gone before you had no such advantages. But by the gift of these institutions, those here are taking the first great step towards improving the advantages guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Great advantages are given these people by the provisions of the Constitution and the Amendments, and the colored people are coming to improve them. The privilege of emigration is permitted and allowed to any people. But other things being equal, every one is happiest in passing his life in the locality where he was born. So that I am glad to see you improving these opportunities. I hope everything for the colored people, and may you make freedom a blessing to yourselves. Gentlemen, I thank you for your kindness.’

“Then the Field Supt., in behalf of the A. M. A., followed, thanking the General for the peace-policy which he had inaugurated, and which is affording so much aid to our work among the Indians; and thanking him for his word in China, upon Chinese emigration, which has helped us in our missions on the Pacific coast. The Superintendent also reported the extent of the work of the A. M. A. at the South, the patriotism of the colored people, and their hunger for knowledge. A young lady, in behalf of the students, presented the General with a bouquet, and Col. Lewis (colored), Collector of the Port, responded for the colored soldiers of Port Hudson. The scholars and friends then filed around and shook hands with the General.”

OLD NAILS WELL CLINCHED.

Three cases of more than ordinary importance were decided in the United States Supreme Court, last month, from which it happily appears that the soul of Judge Taney doesn’t “go marching on.” The Negro has rights. Thanks to the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, he has exactly the same civil rights as the white citizen. Moreover, he has equal rights before the courts—any “State Sovereignty” legislation discriminating against him to the contrary notwithstanding. The test-cases, which had been appealed to the Supreme Court, were those in which colored men had been put on trial for alleged crimes in State courts, and had been denied the right of having any member of their own race on the jury. This discrimination against them, on account of race and color, was pronounced unconstitutional and illegal. The decision is one to awaken devout thankfulness and patriotic pride in the hearts of all lovers of humanity and equal rights for all.—The Advance.

THE CASE IN A NUT-SHELL.

Judge Tourgee, if he is the author of that remarkable book, “A Fool’s Errand,” which every citizen of the Union should not only read, but profoundly study, puts the case in a nut-shell when, in answer to his old teacher’s question, “But what can be done for their (the Negroes’) elevation and relief, or to prevent the establishment of a mediÆval barbarism in our midst?” he says:

“The remedy is one that must be applied from the outside. The remedy for darkness is light; for ignorance, knowledge; for wrong, righteousness. The nation nourished and protected slavery. The fruitage of slavery has been the ignorant freedman, the ignorant poor white man, and the arrogant master. Now, let the nation undo the evil it has permitted and encouraged; let it educate those whom it made ignorant, and protect those whom it made weak. It is not a matter of favor to the black, but of safety to the nation. Make the spelling-book the sceptre of national power. Let the nation educate the colored man and the poor white man, because the nation held them in bondage, and is responsible for their education; educate the voter, because the nation cannot afford that he should be ignorant. Honest ignorance in the masses is more to be dreaded than malevolent intelligence in the few.”

We express no opinion as to his method for applying this remedy, as it would lead to a discussion of political questions with which, as such, we have nothing to do. But that the remedy for, and the provision against, these threatening evils, is the education of these people, of this there can be no doubt.

We are happy to say, also, that the work already accomplished by our schools is dissipating the fears, conciliating the prejudices, and disarming the hostility of the Southern people, who are coming more and more to appreciate and sympathize with the effort to educate the Negro, and in helpful ways to co-operate with us in this work. The remedy, indeed, must come from without; but it is beginning to operate, and the most hopeful symptom of healthful action is that the patient begins to appreciate and demand it.

SOUTHERN NEGROES IN NEW YORK CITY.

In our efforts to find out the needs of the emigrants for Liberia, now in New York, we have discovered facts in regard to the resident colored population in the city which were to us a great surprise. One of its most intelligent colored men informs us that of the 20,000 colored inhabitants in this city, only about 5,000 are of Northern birth.

A church organized two years ago, with 21 members, has now a membership of 150, and a congregation of about 800, all of whom are from the South. They now worship in a hall for which they pay $40 per month; have raised more than $3,000 for current expenses; $300 for charities, and have $2,000 in bank toward a church building. The pastor of this church is a young ex-slave from Norfolk, Virginia.

Now, in regard to the refugees themselves, we believe an attendance upon the meeting in Dr. Garnet’s church, called to organize and systematize the effort to care for them, would have proved a radical cure for chronic and most persistent doubt as to the negroes’ ability to meet an emergency. The overflowing charity of that meeting was only matched by the wisdom, prudence and skill with which it was managed.

If the Christian churches and friends of Christ would but seek out, and bring as prominently before the public, facts, of which there are many, such as the above, showing the rapid progress these people are making under great discouragements, as the police courts and enemies of the negro report and dwell upon those which show his degradation, we are confident he would be held in much higher estimation.

We venture to say that a like number of refugees of any other race, in as great destitution, with a similar story of wrongs, whether true or false, could not be so quietly stowed away in New York, or left to be cared for so exclusively by their own people. There have been no urgent appeals to the public, and either none at all, or but a passing notice of their arrival, in our religious papers.

WOMAN’S HOME MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION.

This new organization held its first public meeting in Boston, March 18th. The ladies assembled at eleven o’clock in the lecture room of the Park Street Church, which was crowded. Mrs. C. A. Richardson, of Chelsea, presided; Mrs. J. F. Hunnewell, of Charlestown, acted as Secretary. By-laws were read and adopted. An address on the general subject was made by Mrs. Sarah K. Bolton; and Mrs. Steele, of Revere, gave a very interesting account of her labors in Maryland for eight years among the poor whites.

A more public meeting was held in the afternoon in the audience-room of the church, which was also well filled. Rev. Dr. Webb presided, and made a very appropriate and encouraging introductory address, sketching the new range of work opened for women in the missionary world, and assuring the new organization of the welcome it would receive by the officers and friends of the American Board and the Woman’s Board. By invitation, representatives of the American Missionary Association and of the American Home Missionary Society addressed the audience; Rev. C. L. Woodworth and Rev. M. E. Strieby, D. D., appearing for the former, and Rev. Robert West and Rev. H. M. Storrs, D. D., for the latter. These gentlemen confined themselves, as was expected, to presenting a view of the wide fields occupied by their respective societies, and the great need and remarkable hopefulness which they furnished for the labor of woman in the elevation and Christianization of the more destitute women and children of the great West and South.

This new organization originated entirely with the ladies themselves, and, as far as we can judge, has been inaugurated and will be carried forward with great wisdom and efficiency, and with no spirit of rivalry, but with the utmost Christian consideration and love towards other similar boards. It is hard to predict the future of a new benevolent organization. Who could have conjectured in 1810 the grand reach of Christian labor achieved by the ever-to-be-honored American Board? And who, ten years ago, could have foreseen the remarkable energy and wonderful success—then latent, but now active—displayed by the Christian women of this land in the several denominations in co-operation with the great Missionary Boards? But while we cannot prophesy of the future of this new society, yet the success of those we have mentioned encourages us to anticipate for it a glorious career. There certainly is room in this our land, among the women and children of less favored portions and races, for the widest and most hopeful endeavors that can be put forth; and while the degraded of distant lands should not be neglected, certainly those in our own should not be passed by. This new Board has our warmest sympathies.

EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA.

In a letter from Rev. J. Edwards, of Grantville, Mass., he adds his testimony to the many that reach us from all directions, that the South is experiencing a gradual, and to one who visits it after several years’ absence, marked uplifting. He also comes back full of the assurance, as do all others who study the “problem of the South,” that the A. M. A. is doing good work just where it is needed. We thank him for his letter, and second his suggestion that our work presents a magnificent opportunity to the Christian and patriot. We have room for a few extracts:

“Enter the train of the Seaboard & Roanoke Railroad and you will be carried very comfortably through a country as monotonous and unexciting as you will often find. You can bear to watch, for once, the scenery that looks so painfully uninviting it is positively entertaining: light land, scattered pines, and here and there, the so-called villages, of which you might say, ‘enough of them—such as they are.’ No bright green sward; and as for houses, homes—where are they? Surely not very near the line of the railroad, unless you can by courtesy give the name to the scanty cabins, with the tow-headed children, and the wan women, and the man scratching the top of the earth with a plow drawn by one decrepit steer or sorry mule.

“The railroad on to which you pass at Weldon, would carry you to Wilmington, famed throughout the old North State for its delightful social life. But we stop one hundred miles short of this, in the heart of the State. Your desolate ride has hardly prepared you for the pleasing aspect of the town that greets you. Comfortable houses, some of them tasteful, with abundant flower-yards, and, now and then, the familiar green turf, preserved with a good deal of pains; the county buildings, numerous and large stores, some of them doing a business of two or three hundred thousand a year, assure you that here, too, are homes and American enterprise. You are in the midst of the cotton belt—a dry, light, almost sandy soil, level like the bottom of a lake, showing signs (in beds of marl, with shells not yet absorbed) of having been once under the sea, easily tilled; large amounts of chemical fertilizers in use; plenty of work for both whites and blacks; and, although some of both races are do-nothings, numbers of both are industrious and reap the reward. The relations between the two races here appear to the casual eye entirely peaceful. Some blacks are leaving for Indiana, and a few are returning; and the departure of those who go from this particular section only gives more room and occupation for those who stay.

“A fragment of the conversation of two negroes I overheard on the street sounded true and sensible: ‘My ’pinion is, one dat’s willin’ to work, kin make a livin’ most anywhar; as fur —— he allus was too lazy to live; he’s too lazy to die. I don’t b’lieve nuffin sech as he ses.’ They were talking of a bright but indolent mulatto, well known in the place, who had lately exodusized and come back.

“The churches are Baptist, Episcopal, and Methodist, with ‘Hard-shells,’ Campbellites, etc. The colored people have churches and preachers of their own, and will never rise very high till they have schools and better churches.

“The lack of schools is a great evil, felt and deplored by some of the best people. There are private schools for the whites who can pay for them, but no public schools for them, and none of any kind for the blacks here yet. But times move forward and grow better.”

LE MOYNE INSTITUTE, MEMPHIS, TENN.
Training Nurses—Needle-Work—Preparation of Food, etc.

In the Missionary for March, 1879, Miss Milton gave some account of the industrial department of the school at Le Moyne, and also announced the purpose of giving attention to the training of nurses.

Prof. Steele writes that their plans have been more fully developed with most gratifying results. During the year, about an hour each day has been devoted to such work, without interfering with regular studies, and with the effect of stimulating the students in all other directions. The list of questions on the care of the sick, which constituted a part of their examination at the close of the winter term, indicates a varied and minute training, which must fit these pupils to be angels of mercy, and most blessed ministers of comfort and health in many cabins of the South.

Professor Steele reports a death-rate among the negroes of Memphis that is simply appalling. He says in other cities of the South it is about double that among the whites; in Memphis it is three times as great. We are confident that this disproportion does not prevail through the country. The blacks are gregarious, and crowding into the cities, as they do, in ignorance and poverty, disease is fearfully fatal among the children; but we do not believe the forthcoming census will establish such a death-rate as the above among the colored population at large.

Our teachers, wise and Christ-like in their spirit, are directing their efforts to whatever affects the welfare of these poor people, and their condition will constantly improve.

ANGLO-TURKISH CONVENTION FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.

The Queen of England announced at the opening of the last session of Parliament, Feb. 5th, “That a convention for the suppression of the slave-trade has been concluded between my Government and that of his Imperial Majesty the Sultan.” This was very gratifying to all who had so long waited the signing of the oft-promised and oft-delayed treaty with Turkey. On the 9th of February, it was said by the Under-Secretary of State that the treaty had been signed but not ratified, and would soon be laid upon the table of the House of Commons. In the meantime, what purports to be a copy of the treaty has been published.

An examination of its several articles creates grave fears that astute Turkish diplomacy has been too much for Sir Henry Layard in this matter. It is all very well for English cruisers to have the right to search suspected ships, sailing under the Turkish flag, for slaves; but their officers cannot touch African slave seamen, and it will be easy to so make out a ship’s papers that she can carry many more men than she needs, and she can change her crew every voyage. All slaves seized, another article provides, shall be turned over to Ottoman authorities for the purpose of proclaiming them free, which, we fear, will prove as effectual in accomplishing that result, as throwing the turtle into the water by the simpleton was effectual in drowning it.

When England made treaties with other slave-holding nations for the suppression of the slave-trade, she provided that captured slaves should be tried before a mixed Commission in which British officers sat. In this treaty they take their chances for freedom before an Ottoman Court.

In this connection we regret to announce that Pacha Gordon has resigned, and his resignation has been accepted; and thus Central Africa loses its noble Christian ruler. He went out in 1874 as Governor General of Soudan, “to establish a regular government, to create facilities for commerce, and to destroy the slave-trade in the province entrusted to him,” and his resignation will bring dismay to all who have the cause of humanity at heart. It was at first reported that Ismail Eyoub Pacha had been appointed to take his place, who, while not Gordon Pacha, was, it is said, as good a man for the post as could be found in Egypt. But the Anti-Slavery Reporter now says, “it is officially announced that the actual successor is one Raouf Bey, of evil memory.”

This Raouf Bey is spoken of by Sir Samuel Baker in his “Ismailia” as the bosom friend of Abou Saood, whom he describes “as the incarnation of the slave-trade, and the greatest slave-dealer on the White Nile.” Colonel Gordon thinks it certain that the slave-dealers will at once resume their operations, and will be unmolested by the new Governor. He estimates that at least 30,000 slaves have annually, for the past twelve years, been brought down from the Bahr Gazelle and Darfur; and Vice-Consul Wylde believes that not less than 50,000 annually cross the Red Sea, who are taken to Egypt, Turkey, and other Mohammedan countries. And now, it seems, the Anglo-Turkish Convention provides that slaves captured by the English shall be handed over to the Ottoman authorities to be by them declared free, and a noted slave-hunter displaces the Christian suppressor of that hellish traffic in the governorship of the slave-hunting grounds.

MR. H. M. STANLEY ON THE CONGO.
[From the Field, March 12.]

As the recent movements of this well known African explorer have not been given in detail, the following translation of a letter written by Father Carrie, head of the Congo Mission, dated Landana, December 3, 1879, and published in Les Missions Catholiques (No. 559), may not be without interest.

Father Carrie says: “Having just returned from a voyage through the whole navigable portion of the Lower Congo, I take the first opportunity of sending you the following particulars concerning Mr. Stanley and his explorations. The party of the great explorer is somewhat numerous. It consists, besides the leader, of a superintendent, an engineer, a sea captain, several mechanics, carpenters, etc., in all, twenty whites of different nationalities—Belgians, Americans, English, Italians, and Danes. A French naturalist, M. Protche, just come to Landana from Paris, and an old member of the German expedition to Chinchoxo, near Landana, are also about to join The ‘Society for the Investigation of the Upper Congo,’ as this expedition terms itself.

“The blacks of the party consist of about one hundred men, Arabs and natives from Sierra Leone and the Congo. The stores are very considerable, comprising especially five small steamers and some auxiliary craft, engines and trucks for land carriage, wooden houses ready for erection, &c.

“Mr. Stanley, as I am informed by Mr. Greshoff, proposes to go up the Congo to the Lualaba, where he hopes to meet his Arab friend Tibu-tin. He will then explore the Western part of the Congo as well as the countries near both of its banks, and will endeavor at the same time to bring the ivory-trade to Emboma. When we arrived at Vivi (four or five miles below the first cataract of the Yellala Falls), Mr. Stanley was on his way across the mountains in the direction of the great village of the same name, doubtless studying the start for his route to the interior. M. Van Schandel, chief engineer of the expedition, told us that the celebrated traveller habitually started on such excursions without warning any one of his going or returning. Soon, however, Mr. Stanley himself was announced; he returned tired to death and covered with dust and perspiration.

“While waiting for the end of the rainy season, he is engaged in firmly establishing his first station—the base of all his future operations—and in maturing his plans for overcoming the gigantic difficulties in his way.

“It is, indeed, a startling enterprise to traverse some two hundred miles of precipitous, rocky mountains, piled up—so to speak—one on the other, and almost without any intermediate passage, not only with a numerous party, but a considerable weight of baggage, wooden houses, trucks and steam vessels, which must be hoisted over heights of from 1,000 to 1,300 feet, with extremely abrupt rises; and this not once, or twenty, or a hundred times, but on thousands of occasions.

“Happen what may, it will require some years’ work to reach the end of this terrible chain of mountains at Stanley Pool, where the second station is to be established.”

Making every allowance for the fears of the worthy ecclesiastic whose letter we have here given, it is sufficiently evident that Mr. Stanley has his work cut out in executing the Belgian international programme. He will, apparently, have a land journey of three hundred miles before he can make use of the river, and he himself considers that it will take three years to carry out the project successfully.

JESUS SAT OVER AGAINST THE TREASURY!

It is an assurance full of sweet comfort, especially to the poor, that One sits over against the treasury who estimates at its full value the widow’s mite, knowing as He does out of what love and self-denial it comes. With a check for the last instalment of $100 from the estate of a poor widow, comes a brief sketch of a life that was beautiful and touching; a life that was full of struggle, and sorrow, and benefaction; which closed in blindness after 88 years. After a brief married life, she was left a widow with one child, in great poverty. She won a home with her needle, in which she lived for forty-two years, the last twenty-six of these entirely alone, as her daughter had been taken from her by death.

She lived her brave, self-forgetful, helpful life; active in all good words and works in church and neighborhood, economizing where her own wants were concerned, keeping guard even over the use of matches; liberal to the limit, not only of what she had, but of what she could earn, where the needs of others were known. Intelligently acquainted with the work of the Church, at home and abroad, from a wide reading of all our home and foreign missionary journals, she accepted it as the highest duty and most honored privilege of life to fill up, according to her measure in her own body, what remains behind of the sufferings of the divine Redeemer. Such gifts are as precious ointment poured upon the head of the Master, and He accepts them with the pledge that they shall not be lost. It were almost a sacrilege to write a name upon our pages by way of eulogy which the Master himself has pronounced with honor before His angels: “Thou hast been faithful over a very little.” “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”

And He still sits over against the treasury, noting not alone the widow’s mite, but the larger gifts of those who give, if not abundantly, yet out, of their abundance.

GRADATIONS, NATURAL AND HELPFUL.

Can civilization reach the state of nature, that state which God meant for it, until men know how to divide society equally, from top to bottom? I do not mean by this that there will ever come a time when two will not be more than one, when four will not be more than two, and when eight will not be more than four; I do not mean that we shall ever see the time when there will not be gradations in society from the top to the bottom—gradations of power, gradations of intelligence, gradations of wealth, gradations of refinement; but there is to be in society just that which exists in households—namely, a disposition, that runs from the top to the bottom, of love and sympathy; and when you have so stratified society, and organized it, and made every member of it, from the lowest to the highest, feel, “My brother above me is pulling me up higher,” we shall begin to realize our true relation, and fulfil our appointed duty one to another. When in society it is as it is on the sides of mountains, where men, being helped by those who are above them, turn round and help those who are below them, and go on a few steps and again are helped by those that are above them, and again help those that are below them, and so on until they reach the top, then gradation will not be an evil. Gradation is now an evil because there is a stratum of prosperity, and a thick slice of selfishness; then another stratum of prosperity, and a thicker slice of selfishness; and so on, selfishness growing thicker and thicker as you go toward the bottom. It has got to be broken up. The low places, the valleys, have got to be exalted, the mountains have got to be brought down, and men have got to mix and coalesce. In other words, the day has got to come when that simple sentence, a million times repeated, and a million times not understood, shall be fulfilled, and love to God and love to man shall be the law of the universe, and of universal conditions. We have got to come to it first or last.—Christian Union.

ITEMS FROM THE FIELD.

N. C., Lassiter’s Mills.—“The church is greatly revived; six converts this week, and many more seeking the Lord.”

N. C., Raleigh.—“The revival still goes on. There have been over 200 conversions since Mr. Brown left us, and many are still anxious. There are revival meetings in every colored church in the city every night without the least rivalry. We have twenty-two converts in our church already.”

S. C., Charleston.—“Miss Wells has organized a Band of Hope with forty members, and there seems to be a good deal of enthusiasm. The church has fixed on the 3d Sunday in April as the day for a renewal of the covenant. The officers are now visiting every member, urging them to come forward to renew their church pledge.”

Ga., McIntosh, Liberty Co.—Mr. Snelson writes: “Our communion season held yesterday was highly enjoyed by all. Six persons united with the church. Four were promising young men. Two of the candidates came out from Baptist families and were baptized by immersion.”

Ga., Woodville.—Mr. Sengstacke writes: “I have been preaching every night for six weeks. Our Sunday night meetings are crowded, and the unconverted people are becoming alarmed. I am now reaching the very class I have been longing after for some time—the young people. In February I baptized two young people, in March three, and last night one young woman professed conversion. Our Sunday night contributions are increasing. We are having the church repainted on the inside, and are trying to raise money for additional seats. We cannot seat the people. Last Sunday night many turned away, because we had no room.”

Ala., Florence.—Easter-Sunday was observed in an impressive manner. The new church was full.

Ky., Berea.—Some persons have here recently professed faith in Christ, and others are inquiring.