necessities of life, wearing rags, and living for weeks on nothing but hominy and rice, that they might get a start and buy a home. So with many others. The Negroes now pay taxes on two hundred and sixty-five million dollars' worth of property, mostly accumulated since the war. In this south land there are thousands of neat, tasteful, well-furnished homes in the towns belonging to them, and in the country many farms ranging in size from ten to one thousand acres. The U. S. census of 1900 will tell some surprising stories along this line.

Another, and most difficult feature of the problem that confronted the Negro, after the war was, how to lift himself out of the mire of moral corruption in which he found himself.

However it came about, whether his African ancestors were immoral, whether, their descendants were debauched by slavery, or whether, as was probable, both these causes worked together, it is certain that his moral condition was most deplorable. Of course it is not meant that there were no virtuous Negroes in slavery times. There certainly were such. But the tendency of the system was to immorality. In some sections this tendency was uncontrolled. The results were terrible.

Sometimes the moral sense seemed to be destroyed, and virtue and vice were held in equal honor.

As has been remarked, there were pure and virtuous ones before the war. With freedom came progress. The spread of intelligence brought the desire to elevate the race to the moral level of this Christian age. The good and pure and aspiring found each other out. They drew nearer together and at the same time away from those who were living in sin. The gospel was the great hope. As it came to be preached in increasing purity, it manifested an increasing power. The colored churches needed cleansing. They were very impure.

[November.

Even the preachers were sometimes bad men, and corrupted their people. Little by little this has been changed. The standards of church life are much higher, the requirements in the way of Christian character are much more severe than formerly. There are still bad men in the pulpit, but they no longer corrupt their people by public teachings. There is still, at times, sin among the members, but it is now more generally sought out and punished. The line is being drawn more sharply, both in the church and out of it, between those who are walking in the better way and those who are not.

Purity, intelligence, property, some or all of these must now be possessed by him who aspires to leadership among the colored people. On these lines the Negro is working out his problem. It is a large and difficult one, and its solution will require time, but the result cannot be doubted by one who believes in God and the power of His truth.

While we are preparing these pages for the press, which is waiting for them, we receive the intelligence of the death of another of our Church's honored and loved

secretaries, Rev. R. H. Allen, D. D., Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Missions for Freedmen. His bereaved colleague, Rev. J. T. Gibson, writes:

"Dr. Allen was a noble, large-hearted, kind and good man, and those who knew him best esteemed him most. He had been very weak and confined to his room for more than two months, and yet his death came when we least expected it. His last days were very beautiful and he has gone to his reward."

Doubtless those officially near to him will say more of Dr. Allen in our next issue.

BY MOUNTAIN ROADS.

THE FIRST RIDE.

It was five miles through a strange and desolate country, alone, mostly after dark, in an open buckboard and a storm, over a road incomparable for badness; up and down steep hills, hub deep in mud, jolting over rocks and ledges, skirting perilous edges of chasms, fording mountain streams; the wagon trimmed, like a sail boat, by my perching on one side of the seat while the opposite wheels slid down into washed. out gullies. Did such an impossible thoroughfare actually exist? or was it a horrid dream, the bay horse a nightmare? My return by daylight divided the mind. between enjoyment of balsamic wood odors and grand mountain scenery, and wonder why wagon, horse and driver of the night before were not comminuted fractures.

The ride terminated at a little church where the pastor was lighting the lamps and ringing the bell which brought a little audience to hear about Presbyterian education.

The history of the place is written on its face; houses and streets that take one back to Scotland and the north of Ireland whence early settlers came; a lonely farback look telling of a century of isolation 2,200 feet up the mountains, remote, nntil the railroad came within five miles; manse walls full of bullet holes from the civil war; decay and degeneration through twenty-five years without public schools; thin poor soil making mere subsistence toilsome; doors without locks or bolts, promising rare honesty and security to personal property-extending, I am told, even to umbrellas; but recent history that warrants less safety for human life and

virtue; an air of late improvement caused in every department of life by our little school; and closed saloons, the traffic driven out by the school influence.

Two men with their wives, all native to the region, do God's work; one preaching to this and neighboring churches, often taking rides like that of which one was enough for me; the other, having declined a fine call on leaving the theological seminary to labor here, farms twenty acres for a living, builds his yet unfinished house with his own hands, and carries on the academy, preaching Sunday besides. The academy has a two-story building, the neatest structure which I saw thereabouts, the property worth $2,500. The public school work is done by the academy, the public funds thus aiding us; the only school, in a county of 20,000 population, where school keeps more than three months in the year. As the people in the region all believe in God, no objection is made to Bible teaching and religious instruction. The district school teachers are largely from this academy and spend their vacations studying in it, some hoping to get to college, not a few meaning to be ministers. Thus the little school may shape the mental, moral and religious future of its vicinity. The building is commodious for recitation purposes; but "Alas, Master, for it was. (partly) borrowed!" In rebuilding it after its destruction by fire a debt of $900 was incurred. The people cannot pay it; they live on what they raise, but handle little money; yet they can make out by long self-denials perhaps $400; who will give us the other $500 for them? President Young of Center College, Moderator of the General Assembly, tells me that two lads from this

academy are in his freshman class, as well prepared and promising as any. The work of some other churches in the region, commonly by uneducated, often by illiterate preachers who deride education, cannot save it; our work must go on and broaden. My brother, will you not help to pay this debt? My sister, give us aid to save the girls.

THE SECOND RIDE.

It was in the same presbytery, a day or two later, and was thirty-four miles both ways between daylight and dark; I prefer daylight for these roads. A trustee of the school had walked the seventeen miles over the mountain to meet me at the train. We went back with a driver, two good horses and a light wagon. It would make my nerves tingle and my bones ache again to describe that road; upward 2,500 feet; then down, far down into the "cove" or valley

from which there is no other exit-even the waters have to find outlet through a cave. Produce cannot be taken out, save the lighest sort. It is seventeen such miles. to anywhere. The valley, about five miles by eight, is glorified by the wooded mountains towering about it. Here is not even a village; a store, a house or two in sight-others hidden by the forest-and a neat little two-story church, filled up and down with the academy students. Of the eighty eyes that looked at me, seventy were as bright as I have ever looked into. The soil is poor and furnishes few pairs of shoes and stockings; but it raises rare human nature. In days" befo' the war" these mountains furnished most of Tennessee's great men and not a few for the nation; they will do it again, cultured by our school work. This little academy has sent out a hundred teachers in late years, a girl from this cove missionary to China, young men and women to college. Twenty district school teachers will come to study through their vacations; twelve or fifteen of them earning money and getting ready

[November,

to go to college, many to be ministers. They will bring beds, a dish or two, poor clothes, paying twenty-five cents a month rent for crowded room in a rented house, and boarding themselves on scanty meal, molasses and bacon. Many more would come, but there is not narrow bed room for them anywhere about. Would it not be fine to put a dormitory here, furnished. for twenty or thirty more, and all for $2,500? Who will do it-or help to do it?

A CONTRAST.

Ten miles from the church and academy described above, is another Presbyterian church served by the same minister. Another denomination a few years since put a new, and superfluous, church a quarter of a mile from it, and there founded another superfluous school. The handsome buildings, so unlike anything else in the region, are "Yankee" on the face of them; church and three school buildings, one large three-story. They support seven teachers. They have scarcely a pupil who comes five miles or who is above commonschool grade. With a plant costing (my estimate) $25,000 and annual expendiless than one-third as many (lower grade) ture of (my estimate) $5,000 they teach pupils as we do with $2,500 invested and $1,500 annual outlay. would investigate these things; for then I wish people

this Board would not lack means. Give $2,500 for the dormitory and we will do greater things.

ALBERT LEA COLLEGE.

BY THE PRESIDENT.

It was founded by the Synod of Minnesota and the first building erected in 1884, and was opened for students in Sept., 1885. It was originally organized upon the Mt. Holyoke plan, but after a few years' trial domestic work by the students was discontinued. The spirit of consecration and missions has always been maintained.

here received an education more or less complete, and have entered upon life's work. So far as known to the writer, all are doing well, almost without exception. More than fifty are engaged in teaching, some in high positions. A number are married. Christian converts, Mexicans, Mormons, and Indians, have here been educated, and have by their success and faithfulness richly repaid the interest of those who have furnished scholarships. Junaita de la O, now teaching our Mission School in San Pedro, Mexico, is one of these.

The college is wisely located, far from any similar institution. Designed to meet Designed to meet

[November,

a large demand and to occupy a needy field, as fast as its character and excellence become known, it must meet with favor and secure large patronage. It is especially a desirable place for young women of delicate health from further east and south. As a health resort Southern Minnesota is unrivaled. Albert Lea College enjoys this supreme advantage.

The largest contributors have been [Dr. R. R. Abbott, the President, who has put his fortune into it-Sec.] Dr. and Mrs. Daniel Rice, Mrs. McCormick, and the Hon. C. E. Vanderburgh. Others have liberally assisted. liberally assisted. The property of the college aggregates nearly $80,000.

LOOKING BACKWARD.

We clip the following from the letter of a Sabbath School Missionary-one of that noble band of John the Baptists, who are preparing the way of the Lord. He writes:

Twelve years ago, the first of next month, I received my first commission as a Sabbathschool Missionary. Looking backward we shall see how God has blessed the work, and thus be enabled to answer the question so often asked, "Does our Sabbath-school Missionary work pay?"

The first Sabbath-school I organized was in a neighborhood so lawless that no one could pass through it after nightfall, and when operations were commenced the men came to the meetings carrying their firearms, and many of the women smoked tobacco during the service. Our services were the first ever held there. Now there is a school-house in which there are preaching and Sabbath-school services every Sabbath, and many have been won for the Lord Jesus.

organized a

Sabbath-school

At D-- we on a rail fence. It was the best we could do. Now the school then organized has a good house in which to meet.

At Ewe organized in a log-house. Now they have a church, and a good church edifice, with a church membership of twenty and seventy-two in the Sabbath-school.

At F we organized in a tent. Now the church into which the school developed has forty members, and there are over one-hundred in the Sabbath-school.