In

has been formed. In some it is a small coöperating committee. others it is a strong and active executive. Such local committees plan your secretary at such points as they think he can best serve the needs of their field and an effort is made to have a central convention and a conference with the committee.

There is time here for mention of only a few of the conditions of the work. First, the Isthmian Association of Panama, which operates along the line of the Canal Zone, holds regular conventions, does some school visitation by its officers, has a few Teacher Training classes, Home Departments and Cradle Rolls, and under circumstances more peculiar than met anywhere else is making schools feel its good influence. The work suffers from the frequent return of its officers to their homes in the United States. This difficulty cannot be avoided, so we overcome it in the best possible way. Many of the meetings there have to be with separate congregations and conferences with small bands of teachers. This is because of peculiar conditions which cannot be changed, but the good results of these can be seen, and their semi-annual conventions are both well attended and are enthusiastic.

In Puerto Rico, at present, we have not an organization for the whole island. Meetings for groups of congregations and schools have been held widely and with good results, according to pastors' testimonies. District organization, however, has been used for much good. I was present at the Ponce District Convention in April last. Throughout all its sessions it would have done credit to our much older work in the North. At nine in the morning one hundred delegates with earnest faces looked up to the platform. Some of these had come many miles at their own expense in travel and hotel that they might learn how to be more efficient in their Sunday-schools. A few of them were beyond middle life and had come into the gospel light late, but the majority were young and full of promise for the future of the church. Addresses, lessons and inquiries showed the value they set on the Bible, and their desire to have the best kind of schools. The spiritual atmosphere of that convention was one which augured the best for real success. These are Twentieth Century Sunday-schools, for until about the close of the last century the Bible was not allowed to be an open book in Puerto Rico. Two hundred and sixty Sunday-schools with a membership of 15,000 speaks well for God's blessing on faithful missionary labor.

Of Cuba you have heard more than of some other parts of this great field. Incidents of its many meetings cannot be cited here. Its annual convention held in Santiago last November was a splendid indicator of

Sunday-school interest. Although this city is at the extreme eastern end of that great island, yet the attendance was larger than a year ago, when it was held in a central province. The sight of 235 registered delegates, young people with their missionary preachers and teachers, traveling and boarding at their own expense, manifesting a deep interest in all exercises, made impressions long remembered. The apparent influence in the streets and hotels was something not previously witnessed in that city, which is not Christian. The leaders were boldly outspoken as to the influence of Bible teaching. One speaker said, "Among the blessings of our Sunday-schools is seen the new efforts of some Romanist priests to hold what they call Sunday-school, and although their raffles for dolls and prizes, as an attraction to scholars, is mistaken, yet it shows one kind of influence of our work." It is this open Bible work which has made some priests ashamed to attend the cockfights allowed by Cuban laws. The public taunt them, saying "The Protestants will be after you." The public discern the difference in the lives of those who go to Sunday-schools and those who go to Sabbath theaters and other places of wicked amusement. There is at once a great need and a great opportunity in Cuba, and the sessions of the executive show they desire to place their work on a good basis while they are waiting for their expected secretary.

From Demerara the President writes: "The methods of the International Sunday-school Association are being better understood, the leaven is working, quietly and steadily, but none the less surely, better results are being seen in our Sunday-school work."

In no part does the work afford a more pleasing prospect than in Jamaica. Because of the great earthquake we were long in completing a general organization, and the work went on by districts, but last December the first annual convention of Jamaica was held. It was a season of inspiration, and encouraged the officers. Recently their excellent local secretary wrote, "We are realizing better organization and grading; that the earlier the child is brought in touch with Sunday-school and with other church privileges through the Sunday-school the better for all subsequent years; that the Sunday-school is the church's department of Bible study and that our young people can be retained in its membership. We feel that teachers must be equipped for their work, and there is a steady effort in the direction of better Bible study, the study of child nature and the art of teaching."

Thus the work is one of lights and shadows, but the light is that of a

dawning day in which the truth shall drive the shadows away. And if as the day rises it is more clearly seen that the field needs more workers than when you first entered upon it, this will be a call to plan for larger things.

A WORD FROM CUBA

REV. S. A. NEBLETT, SECRETARY-ELECT FOR Cuba.

Cuba believes in the Sunday-school Association, and the evangelical churches of Cuba believe that the organized Sunday-school movement is the solution of many of their problems, and that in the Sunday-school there is the most efficient agency for the evangelization of Cuba.

Six years ago, one of our missionaries, brother H. S. Harris, who in a few days will leave for South America, conceived the idea of a Sundayschool and a Young People's Convention. He presented his motion before the assembled pastors of Havana, Cuba, and it was decided to hold in the following year a Sunday-school convention. A good many people thought the movement was premature, they thought we did not have enough Sunday-schools and young people's societies to make a convention possible, yet the committee went ahead and secured the necessary data and advertised the convention, and in the month of June, 1906, the First National Sunday-school and Young People's Convention was held in the city of Matanzas. We expected an attendance of fifty or sixty delegates, and to our great surprise we had present 126 delegates from all provinces of the island. They had never understood as yet what it meant to be an evangelical Christian, and in the moment of our first assembly in an evangelistic church a thrill went over the entire body as we sang, "Rescue the Perishing" and "Onward Christian Soldiers." In that moment the Sunday-school movement took on a new aspect. The following year we had another convention, and Dr. Phillips was present and he helped us greatly in the matter of organization. Then came Brother Lucas, and he has been visiting us year after year, going from one end of Cuba to the other, meeting Sundayschool leaders and addressing meetings, and has brought us a new conception of the organized Sunday-school. Three years ago at your Louisville convention, some representatives of our association were present. Mr. Ellzey caught a vision and he carried it back to Louisiana, and as a result the good men and women of that state made it their purpose and put it into action to contribute a thousand dollars a year to support the work in the island of Cuba. Brother Ellzey visited us at

the Third National Convention at Cienfuegos, and there we organized after the form of your State and Provincial Associations, the Cuban National Sunday School Association, and that Association has been doing efficient work ever since. At that meeting the executive committee voted to raise $575 to pay on the traveling expenses and office expenses of the secretary, and the spirit of self-support is in the churches of Cuba. I believe the time will soon come when the Cuban Association will be strong enough to pay half of his salary and traveling expenses.

CONDUCTED BY MARION LAWRANCE, GENERAL SECRETARY.

Ques. What should be the Superintendent's last word in dismissing the Sunday-school?

Ans.-Invitation to church-prayer-benediction-something that will fix the lesson truth.

Ques. Should organized adult classes be present at the opening and closing exercises? How much time should they have to themselves? Ans.-Better that all should be together in the opening exercises, but that large classes should be dismissed from their own class rooms.

Ques. To what extent should an organized class be independent from the school?

Ans.-None; it has a bad effect for any class to be independent from the rest.

Ques. What is the best plan for maintaining a helpful council meeting of officers and teachers?