no other precedence, but it has this, self, home, neighborhood, country, and then beyond, to the world's end, is the divinelyindicated order of work. Like the Macedonians, we "first give ourselves to the Lord," and then to the church and the world. Home claims our earliest endeavor, by contiguity and natural affection. Neighborhood appeals to us, as to the Good Samaritan. Fatherland brings to bear the mighty motive of patriotism and self-preservation.

And then the more distant claims take their turn, and so on to the outer verge of humanity and the utmost scope of the divine command. A zealous Christian obedience must and will resort to the telescope to discern the furthest range and region of its duty; but not until it has used and taxed the naked eye in its survey of the nearer fields.

And this precedence of the home work in this modified sense, far from rivalling or retarding, directly fosters and furthers, the work abroad. Every fresh access of home missionary zeal rouses a new interest in the regions beyond. Every newly-organized congregation on our frontier is to be a new and sure source of missionaries and means for the ends of the earth. Let home missions droop, and foreign missions will die. Stop building churches and sending out ministers here, and we shall lose our power to evangelize heathen abroad as well as immigrants at home. God speed these two great departments of the one grand work; but, for the sake of both, let home missions lead the way. Go into all the world, but begin at Jerusalem.

The Women's Home Missionary meetings were unusually enthusiastic. The reports of the year's work were most encouraging; the schools had been prosperous, and a goodly number of pupils had been converted and had united with the church; the General Assembly had never more heartily or broadly endorsed their work; so from the place where the Assembly met,-in the midst of the mission field,-and every transpiring at the Assembly, it was well entitled

to what it was so frequently called, the Home Missionary Assembly.

Some elders are worth their weight in gold. One such wrote us the first of March asking how many churches in his presbytery of 44 had failed to contribute to the Board up to date. Finding there were 22, he began to urge on them the importance of a collection, and 20 out of 22 responded promptly to the appeal, and at the last he sent $10 from his own pocket to be divided between two feeble churches, thus leaving no delinquents in the list.

OUR WANTS.

The Standing Committee on Home Missions represented the wants of the Board as greater than ever before. They say truly:

In the older states help is needed for old churches, new railroad centres, new suburbs of large cities, new fields growing in population, and new workers are needed to meet the immense and increasing tide of immigration. West of the Mississippi river, Texas needs 12 men for new work; the Indian Territory 16; Iowa Idaho, Utah and Arizona 27; the Pacific coast 45; Missouri, Nebraska and Kansas 45 men; and other states and territories in proportion. Not less than two hundred men are needed now.

20;

Our school work never was so widespread. It is enlarging and strengthening among the Mormons, the Mexicans and the Indians. It is capable of indefinite extension. The field which is opening in the South seems to us to have no bounds whatever.

offer aid as far as possible; and good, capable speakers can be found among the pastors in every synod who would undoubtedly lend their assistance gladly. Let us have a large number of missionary conventions before Christmas.

I hope by Monday I shall be well enough to go to Omaha, if it is best. I would like to be at the Assembly Tuesday, would like to go before the Committee of Polity of Church and advocate the Indian Synod.

The new Synod of the Indian Territory

D.D.

The following letter was received the 20th of May. The next morning another brief letter came, and two hours later the following telegram: Dr. Timothy Hill fell dead this morning at 10 o'clock.

His preparation for the unexpected event is beautifully expressed in the letter itself. See also his desire to see the organization of the Synod of Indian Territory. He did not live to see it. But that synod was organized Tuesday afternoon at about the same hour that Dr. Hill was lowered into the grave.

DEAR BROTHER KENDALL :-I reached home

Saturday night sick, suffering extremely. Home and the promptest and tenderest care relieved me somewhat, but not until the doctor came, and with his little serpent-tooth instrument injected morphia, was there any real relief. I am now in a fair way to be out soon, but have not left the yard as yet, and am quite weak. The occasion was a break in the railroad, necessitating a transfer of cars, which required a long walk. I became extremely heated, and on reaching the car sat down by an open window, and was seized with extreme pain in what I supposed to be the lungs, but the doctor said it was the diaphragm. The ride home-eighty miles-and up to the house was a hard one, but it was home. How much of providential care has been around me! For twenty years I have been coming and going at all seasons, day and night, and I have never before called for a doctor at home. Twice only in these twenty years I have had some difficulty that required medical attention when away from home. In all these years of travel I have never seen a railroad accident that injured life or limb of any passenger. With a grateful heart I look back and thank the heavenly Father for his infinite goodness. May he guide me to the end, and call me home when and how he will. Humbly but confidently I can say, Father in heaven, thy will be done.

We call the attention of our readers to the following extracts from letters of Rev. Messrs. Pomeroy and Peterson as to the Black Hills of Dakota. A dozen years ago there was great excitement about this country as a mining country. But it was difficult of access. Passengers and freight had to be hauled 400 miles by private conveyance through a country inhabited only by Indians. But now mining is settling down to a sober industry; the mountains are covered with pine forests; broad areas of valley and prairie land are already beginning to respond bountifully to the demands of agriculture; while, on the same latitude of northern New York, Michigan and Wisconsin, the climate must be healthful and invigorating. That country, and what lies to the north and west, is now laid open by railroads, and it will soon be occupied by hardy and enterprising men. Two faithful missionaries are already in the field. Where are the two other men who are ready to join them?

THE BLACK HILLS-NOT BOOMING BUT GROWING.

REV. J. B. POMEROY, SUPERINTENDENT.

all parts of the hills, and men engaged in nearly all business pursuits, and begin to realize that the business of the region is to be of all kinds. The mountains are full of minerals, precious and useful. They are covered with forests of pine. They are interspersed with small parks. These parks and valleys are being occupied with farmers, to what extent is indicated by the large quantity of seeds of all kinds for garden and farm products taken from the trade centres. There is really a total of large and I believe exceptionally fine farming country in the hills. Could you see the implements stored in the yards of salesmen in Rapid City you would think a state the size of New York was to be supplied from this city. One firm brought in nine car-loads at one order of machinery-mowers, ploughs, cultivators, etc., all for the farm. Statistics are not within my reach, or I should like to give definite information as to the number of farms occupied this year past.

The mining of gold and silver is becoming a settled, substantial industry, somewhat as in the coal mining of Pennsylvania, or even of New York state. Regular shipments of gold in bars and dust range from three to five hundred thousand dollars per month, or about four and one half millions of dollars per year. The larger part of this, of course, is mined by the strong corporations, but a proportion equal to perhaps one fourth or one third comes from individuals owning and working mines. The taking up of claims and working them at an advantage by individuals is an increasing industry. Especially is this true of silver. Most of the silver is shipped in the ore to Omaha and other smelters. The ores are brought by the wagon-load to the cars, some of them by companies, others by individuals. One of these firms engaged in shipping sent over by the cars during the months of January and February about two hundred thousand pounds of silver ore, or one hundred thousand pounds per month. This firm told me this morning that these figures are no just representation of the large amounts of silver ore mined and awaiting a favorable condition of the roads such that they can be hauled to the cars. The great bulk of the ores that have been mined are thus stored in the mountains waiting for summer and solid roads.

And now all this means a steadily-increasing and profitably-employed population. When once the real conditions are illustrated, and it is generally known, as it must be soon, that mining like farming can be carried steadily

forward, and with about as great certainty of reward, a larger population will turn attention that way.

Another fact which claims attention is the railroads being built. The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad is grading on beyond Rapid, toward Sturgis and the northern hills.

Contracts are now being let on a narrowgauge road from Rapid to the northwest through the hills. This latter is under contract to open seventy miles of road within eighteen months, and has ample backing to be able to fulfill the contract. It means for one thing an outlet for the miner and minerals via Rapid, and for another permanent and substantial increase in the towns along its line.

Half way between Rapid and Sturgis is a point where two fine valleys open out through the foot-hills, and where all agree must be another good railroad town. A good man now on the ground would be for our Board a paying investment.

I think two more men at least might profitably be employed here now. As the open weather and long days shall come, and I can get a little respite from the work here, I propose explorations with an eye to new churches in different parts of the hills.

Rapid church at its communion, May 1, added seven members, among them a banker and his wife, an old stanch Presbyterian. We are in full occupancy of our neat little edifice, with congregations running from sixty to one hundred and ten attendants. Send us some good, active, live Christian young ministers, and we will report you grand results in due time.

HIS DYING REQUEST.

As noticed elsewhere, Dr. Timothy Hill died at ten o'clock A.M. the 21st of May. After his death we received, at Omaha, the following letter, written the morning before he died—perhaps the last he ever wrote:

MAY 21, 1887.

DEAR BRO. KENDALL:-The letter which I send with this is in full confirmation of all that Moffat has said about that wild West. I am much moved by it. As soon as I feel equal to the task I must go out there; but I must be a great deal stronger than I am now before I can undertake such a journey. Is there no man who can go out into that region and take up the work so urgently needed?

I am in a hurry just now,
Yours always,

more.

and will write no

T. HILL.

THE NEW SOUTH.

What is said about the development of new industries and the increase of northern people and northern capitalists in the readjustment of the South since slavery has ceased and the war passed away has given to it the name of the "New South." These new features, which involve new towns, the necessity for new churches, suggest the inquiry, What is the duty of our church in the case? Are we doing our part to evangelize the South? Are we showing as much zeal in the work there as we are in that of the great West? Our hands seem to be full without enlarging our work; but has not the enlargement of the work always brought the enlargement of our resources? ability of the church has not been exhausted. He that opens the work can enlarge our resources. "The Lord reigns;"

let us follow when he leads.

The

Work among the foreign population and the evangelization of cities, that seem to go hand in hand, have gained in interest during the year. The whole church has become interested in the work, and it scarcely needs urging on our part. The rapid growth of all our cities presses itself so powerfully on the church that presbyteries which embrace them are alive to the importance of planting more churches in all our cities where foreigners most do congregate.

Our work is augmented for the year to come by what has accumulated on our hands on account of our inability to meet the demands made upon us the previous year. And if it should be asked how we can expect to do a larger work the present than the last year, it may be said that the church will be larger, perhaps more consecrated and generous than before, and it certainly will be well for us to see what opportunities lie before us and what responsibilities God has laid on us.

We are always glad to record the changes which have been wrought by the faithful work of our pioneers in the West. There

are few places in western Kansas which have had a worse reputation, in years past, than Dodge City. The whole history of the town covers a period of only fifteen years. It was given up for some years to the control of the roughest elements of frontier society. Gambling, drunkenness and bloodshed were the characteristics of the place. In 1876 Rev. O. W. Wright began his labors in a chapel built by the combined efforts of the Christian people of the town. After four years, failing health obliged him to leave. The work did not stop, although it was not always conducted under Presbyterian direction.

To-day the whole character of Dodge City has changed. There are several churches. The Presbyterian congregation has outgrown its building and will immediately enlarge its edifice. A Presbyterian college is to be started in the fall, with substantial support from business men of the city. There are now 5000 people in Dodge City, and it has become a beautiful place. This is but one of the many places which owe their prosperity to the work of home missions.