enough to see the power that lies behind a million and a half of Negro ballots, and she will leave no stone unturned to bring them under her control. That power must not fall under Romish influence in a country where the Bible and the Protestant religion form the basis and bulwark of her institutions. Should this ever be the case, then the future of these United States, as well as that of the Negro, will be dark indeed.

THE WORK IN TEXAS. Amid a population of nearly half a million colored people in Texas, Mary Allen Seminary is the only institution wholly devoted to the Christian education of colored girls. There are other institutions under Christian management, as at Marshall and Austin, which receive both sexes and are doing good work, but which have not that special charge and oversight of their pupils which prevail here. As a consequence pupils come to us from the immediate vicinity of other institutions.

THE FIELD.

The col

The field is the whole Southwest. ored women of this region are in many respects in a deplorable condition. Uncleanness, lying and theft are the everywhere-prevailing sins. Yet nearly all of them "have religion," as they express it, and are members of church and most assiduous in their attendance upon their services. The first of these sins is rarely a cause of discipline, the last two never, as far as I have observed. Their "preachers" are for the most part utterly ignorant even of the first principles of the gospel, and morally no better than their people-sometimes worse. Their sermons, so called, are mere rhapsodies or furious harangues, directed wholly to developing excitement in their hearers, with little sense and wholly devoid of gospel instruction. Many of them are opposed to our work and do all they can to prevent parents from sending their daughters to us. The effects of their preaching are often the wildest excitement and extrav

with morality and will never make this people better. There are many truly pious people among them. But in many cases "religious" ones utterly repudiate what they stigmatize as "Bible religion," or "white folks' religion," and hold instead a strange mixture of superstition and formalism.

The mass of them are poor, very poor, although by no means universally so. In many instances they fail to get the due reward of their labor through the dishonesty of some white people. This makes them dishonest in turn. Many men and some women are steady patrons of the whisky saloon. The use of tobacco is wellnigh universal by both sexes. The common school has accomplished very little for this people-nothing whatever morally. Their schools are taught-outside of the larger towns and cities-by utterly incompetent persons, for the reason that there are not enough teachers well qualified. We are obliged to go back to primary work with most of our pupils.

DISCOURAGEMENTS.

The discouragements in such a field are of course many. Among these are the listlessness and indifference of many who come to us, their slowness of apprehension, their persistence in evil habits-especially of lying-and general

untrustworthiness. Outside there is the indifference and even hostility of some of the race to the institution and its work. This is cultivated by ignorant and bigoted "preachers," and by some whites who are bitterly opposed to our work. While this prejudice is gradually yielding, it exists in great bitterness among the white women of the South, with some noble exceptions. Among these hindrances is also the suspiciousness of the race, the result of a long series of impositions; also the little encouragement most of them have to seek to better their condition. But perhaps the most discouraging thing of all is the meagre amount of money contributed by the church for a work of such vast importance to the race and to the

ENCOURAGEMENTS.

There is far more to encourage than to discourage. One year ago last New Year's morn

ing my wife, Miss Bolles and I landed in Crockett. The Mary Allen Seminary was planted in this field. We began with one pupil on the 16th of January. Now our temporary quarters are full to overflowing with, for the most part, bright, promising and deeplyearnest girls. They come to us from far south and north of us, and are making good progress in study, in manners and morals. They catch something of the missionary spirit. A girl thirteen years old, on returning home last summer started and carried on a Sabbath-school during the vacation, conducting the devotional exercises herself and teaching the Bible lessons she had learned in Mary Allen Seminary. She afterwards gave us a dollar, which helped put up our new building. Other pupils are coming, and the problem is how to care for them in our narrow quarters. Many of them are very eager to learn. On the most beautiful site in the county a noble building, the Mary Allen Memorial Seminary, has been carried far toward completion. Local prejudice and hostility are fast dying out. The colored people are waking up to an appreciation of the privileges afforded them. The teachers are consecrated to their

work. The school has a vigorous and healthy growth, and bright prospects for a great work.

NEEDS.

New

We need funds for the completion of the Mary Allen Seminary building. The walls are up, the rafters and sheathing on, but there is no roof, not a door or window, no floors or stairways, nor is there any money to procure these things, without which the building is utterly useless. We ought to have at least $2000 for immediate use in completing the building. How greatly we need its numerous rooms and airy halls, dining and school rooms! pupils are coming in every week. Already we are crowded almost beyond endurance. Yet we refuse no worthy pupil. If the people of our beloved church fully appreciated the need of this great work, and our need of the new building in order to carry on the work, how quickly the needed funds would be forthcoming! We need funds for furnishing rooms. Forty dollars will furnish a room with accommodations for four pupils.

NOTES FROM THE FIELD SECRETARY. REV. H. N. PAYNE.

A thorough knowledge of the work carried on by the Freedmen's Board in the South-a knowledge that shall be at once comprehensive and minute-is not easily attained. It can be had only by close and patient study.

A considerable portion of the work has been examined during the past year, and reports have been made from time to time to the Board. Visits have been made to the colleges, the seminaries, the academies and the parochial schools, to the churches and the Sabbathschools, to the homes of the missionaries and to the humble cabins of their people. In the discharge of this duty 14,550 miles have been travelled, 93 churches and 39 schools visited, 77 sermons preached and 52 addresses made.

In such a work as ours it is to be expected that instances will be found of lack of adaptation, even of inefficiency and unfaithfulness. But, after so extensive an acquaintance with the field, it is a pleasure to record the conviction that our missionaries are, in the main, earnest, faithful, patient and intelligent men and women, zealously and self-sacrificingly devoting themselves to the work to which they have been called by God and the church.

THE FIELD.

It is certainly a broad one. It extends from the tobacco farms of Virginia to the cotton plantations of Texas, from the corn fields of Missouri to the orange groves of Florida, covering an area of nearly 850,000 square miles, and including a population of more than 7,000,000 people of color.

THE NATURE OF THE WORK.

Throughout this broad domain, and among these millions, it is everywhere essentially the same. It is to make these people, who were only half-emancipated when released from civil

bondage, true Christian freemen; to save them from the blight of immorality, ignorance and superstition; to help them to be better men and women, better husbands and fathers, better wives and mothers; to show them how to make their homes so pure and sweet and attractive that Jesus will love to come into them and abide; it is to awaken their long-slumbering energies of mind and heart; to stimulate their hopes and aspirations; to prepare them for citizenship in a great, free, self-ruling nation.

When we think of it in this way, as the salvation of a people, as the regeneration of a race, we cannot wonder that those engaged in it grow enthusiastic and think themselves greatly privileged in having a share in so noble an undertaking.

THE NECESSITY OF THIS WORK.

Three things prove it:

1. The poverty and dependence of the people. There are those who were once warm friends and liberal supporters of the Board, who have lost their interest in its work because they think the colored people have been helped long enough; that they ought now to be able to take care of themselves. Reasonable as this view seems, I speak from personal observation when I say it is not warranted by the facts of the case.

The poverty of the southern country, together with the poor crops and low prices that have so long prevailed, have effected a paralysis of the agricultural interest. This condition of things affects both whites and blacks, but is felt mostly by the blacks because they are so generally farmers. The "boom" in business in the South is mostly confined to mining and manufacturing interests, in which the colored people have no share. It is a sad truth that the condition of these people in many parts of the South is becoming worse every year, and that by no fault of their own. Many who bought little farms and partly paid for them ten years ago have not been able to complete their payments, but have seen debts increase in spite of their utmost exertions, and finally have seen their little homes, their stock, all their possessions, go by forced sale to satisfy importunate claims.

Much as the colored people are attached to the places where they grew up, thousands of them would gladly go to Arkansas, to Texas or to any other place where they would better their condition; but they cannot raise the money to emigrate, and must stay and suffer where they are.

Under such circumstances, to expect these people to support their own ministers and churches is to expect an impossibility. To withdraw the assistance they are now receiving would be to take the "bread of life" from those who are in need even of "the meat that perisheth."

2. Another important suggestive fact is the need of the conservative yet elevating influence of the Presbyterian Church among these people.

It is said the colored people do not take to Presbyterianism; that they are emotional and demonstrative, and are not drawn by our quiet services. If those who hold this opinion could see, as I have, the earnest, thoughtful congregations that gather in many of our churches, and observe their intelligent appreciation of the doctrine and methods of the Presbyterian Church, they would be convinced of their error. God has verily called us to a work among this people, and he will hold us accountable for the manner in which we discharge our trust.

3. Our work is necessary because no one else can do it.

A prominent minister of the Southern Church said to me, "The Northern Presbyterian Church can do for the colored people in the South what no other church in the world can." The interest of southern Presbyterians in the elevation and salvation of this race is widespread and is deepening. They earnestly desire to help them to a higher, better life; but they often find that their most effective work can be done by cooperation with our own church in its work.

I desire here to record the cordial, helpful, brotherly spirit shown toward me and our church by many of these dear brethren during the past year. It has been a pleasure to meet them, to talk with them of our work, and to share their hospitality as I have so often done. In a number of instances they have not only given sympathy and encouragement, but important pecuniary aid, to our churches.

It will be noticed by all who read the recommendations of the General Assembly that the children of the Sabbath-schools are asked to add fifty per cent. to their contributions of last year, aiming not at $50,000, but at $75,000. After all, how slight an effort would this require! There are at this date not less than 750,000 Sunday-school scholars in connection with the Presbyterian Church-three-quarters of a million. If these were to contribute each a dime (and how small a gift is that for a whole year!), the amount would be made up. There is a ward school in New York whose pupils have gotten into the habit of visiting a certain candy stand daily. An eye witness describes the children as standing in a long row, each with a penny, waiting for a turn. A penny a day, if it were kept up through vacations and Sundays, would be $3.65 a year, and that by a class of children who are mostly poor. Three dollars and over for candy, and ten cents a year for the conversion of the world! Surely we need make no apology for urging that in every Sabbath-school and in every home the children will lay their plans at the very beginning of the year for at least an average dime, which means that those who are able must give many dimes. We hope that this year also Christmas offerings will be made on all the mission fields. It is an excellent plan for developing the self-help of the native churches; and surely there is not in all the world, or in all the history of the world, a more soul-stirring impulse than that which attends the idea of a world-wide offering for the glory of that kingdom which Christmas represents.

Twelve Cambridge men have been received by the Church Missionary Society since the last anniversary, and altogether eighteen university men, the largest number ever received in one year.

In the May number of the Missionary Review it is stated editorially that "the Presbyterian Foreign Board (U. S. A.) pays Mr. Rankin, its treasurer, a salary of $3000, with somewhere from $2000 to $4000 for clerk hire for the one special business of transmitting funds to its foreign missions."

We do not know just what impression it was intended to convey by these words, but to the average reader not familiar with the financial operations of a board of missions, the impression really produced is that the work of a treasurer is so simple that any merchant in the foreign trade might manage it in connection with his business, and without charge to the church, since it is merely the transmission of the funds. Supposably, others collect them and send proper receipts: somebody else looks after the distribution on the field, and attends to the accounts of missionaries coming and going, while the treasurer simply sends the funds placed in his hands, as Drexel or Brown Brothers would do.

Having good opportunities to observe the routine duties of the sphere, we are prepared to say that few financial positions involve greater variety or complexity of labor and care than the treasurership of our Board of Missions. The work of receiving and acknowledging contributions, great and small, does not differ from that of other boards, except that many special gifts are made, of which distinct account must be kept and notice must be transmitted to local mission treasurers or to individual missionaries.

But in the administration of the funds received, the work of our treasurer is most complex. He must keep accounts with between thirty and forty mission treasuries in as many different missions, and must so thoroughly understand their financial condition as to suffer no failure of supply. Of course all that belongs to the methods and the rates of foreign exchange must be familiar to him; and as the mission treasurers

are sometimes young and inexperienced, special instructions must be given. Aside from this, personal accounts must be kept with nearly all the missionaries in relation to articles purchased and shipped, or periodicals and papers subscribed for, or to life insurances maintained, or the expenses of children who are being educated in this country. Under the responsible supervision of the treasurer there is an extensive shipping department, through which the goods, furniture, books and packages of all missionaries going and coming must pass. Connected with this department many purchases are to be made, custom-house regulations and vexations are to be met, the best routes and rates of freighting are to be ascertained, as well as the easiest terms for the passages missionaries to their fields. In many of these transactions the difference between a clumsy and a skillful management might suffice to pay the salary of a treasurer.

of

The financial reports which are annually sent from the missions to the treasurer of the Presbyterian Board would fill a fair-sized volume. They embrace detailed accounts of every form of expenditure; salaries of five hundred missionaries and a thousand native helpers, children's allowance, rents, detailed expense of colleges and schools, the complex accounts of nearly a dozen printing establishments in different lands, purchases of property and the erection or repair of buildings, travelling expenses among the out-stations, doctors' bills, freights, exchange, together with the large and complex item of outfit and passage of missionaries to their fields.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth af real estate is held by the Board in different lands, all of which is supposed to be under the supervision of the treasurer, by whom all local laws concerning titles must be understood. On the home side, the laws concerning bequests and many other legal matters should be familiar to the treasurer of so great an institution, and it has been thought of advantage that he should be a competent lawyer.

As to the amount of salary drawn by Mr. Rankin, it is less by $1000 than he is en

titled to draw. He has for thirty-six years remitted one-fourth of his allowance, not because he was not entitled to it, but because he was possessed of other resources which rendered such a gift possible. If all were to deal as liberally with the Board according to their means, it could quadruple its work at once.

The recommendation of the General Assembly to raise $1,000,000 during the coming year for foreign missions originated with the Assembly itself, and not from any suggestion of the Board or its representatives. The Standing Committee on Foreign Missions was a very able one, not only in its chairman but in its entire body. It took up the work as represented in the report of the Board, and as indicated by the rising spirit of missions in the churches, and reached its own conclusions prayerfully and deliberately. It should be borne in mind that during the two or three years of the Board's indebtedness the structural interests of the missions have greatly suffered. The estimates for buildings of all kinds have in almost all cases been stricken out. This course has been pursued so long that new structures in many fields, including residences, chapels, school buildings and hospitals, have become a matter of urgent necessity. One of the most touching appeals made in the General Assembly was that of a missionary on behalf of a co-laborer who has suffered disastrously from living in a native house poorly adapted to the requirements of a foreigner. Many similar cases might be mentioned. It would be easy to make good and economical use of at least $100,000 in the erection of buildings which are important; and this year, which marks the beginning of a new half century of the Board's work and is the centennial year of the Presbyterian Church, would seem to be a proper time for bringing up these necessary arrears.

Moreover, the question arises whether there shall or shall not be any advance in the current work of the Board and in the enlargement of its missionary force. What response shall be made to the wonderful indications which appear in the offering of men, the