strained. There is, however, no excitement on that subject. The State authorities have not yet decided what to do with the fund, and in the meantime, the University goes quietly forward with its work. Prof. Bumstead has just succeeded in raising the $16,000 necessary to meet the current expenses of the year.

At the anniversary exercises there were no graduates from the college department this year. Thirteen pupils, all girls, from the normal department, read their essays and received their certificates of graduation. The number of the class is supposed to be unfortunate, but there was nothing amiss in the quality of the essays they read. They were all good, but the absence of any male voice left the class somewhat in the condition of a choir without a baas. There was a noticeable difference in one respect between the essays on this occasion and those at Hampton. Here there was no local or race tone. If I had closed my eyes, I might have thought myself at the anniversary of a Ladies' Seminary at the North. Scarcely a word or allusion indicated that these girls belonged to the colored race, and for that matter their faces scarcely showed it, for the white blood largely preponderated in most of them. I can well understand why these pupils should prefer to stand forth not as a distinct race, but as American and Christian girls. Perhaps that is the higher wisdom, but it makes the anniversary less distinctive, and inspires less sympathy and enthusiasm. These girls were plainly dressed, and in that respect would differ greatly from the graduating class in a Northern Female Seminary, but they would have no occasion to shrink from a comparison with their Northern sisters, if propriety of deportment, and excellence and force of writing were considered.

At the Howard University, we had the opportunity of attending only the exercises of the graduating class in college. This institution has a good claim to its title as a University, for it has collegiate, medical, theological, law and normal departments. The anniversaries of the theological and medical departments had been held a few days previously in [pg 202] churches down in the city, and were attended, as we understand, by large audiences. The college anniversary, on the other hand, was held in the college chapel, which, while it was well filled, contained a relatively small audience, and this was made up mostly of colored people. We hardly appreciate this discrimination as to the places of holding these anniversaries, for the orations in the chapel were of a high order, and might well have attracted the attention of members of Congress and of the numerous visitors in the crowded city. The graduating class consisted of six persons, one being a lady and she the only one of the class without apparent admixture of white blood. The addresses were all orations, and resembled somewhat the essays in the Atlanta school in presenting almost no touch or tone of race or local surroundings, the lady's being almost the only exception. I could not avoid the conviction, that if these well-trained minds had thrown themselves into topics more nearly related to their own life and race struggle, there would have been more fervor in the oratory. But some of these graduates will yet be heard from as useful laborers in some fields of active Christian work.

THE SOUTH.

NOTES IN THE SADDLE.

I promised, in my February "Notes in the Saddle," to give a brief account of the mountain campaign which had then just closed. It was full of most interesting experiences. We began the series of meetings in the Congregational Church, Jellico, Tenn. The Association was represented by one of its Corresponding Secretaries, a District Secretary, and the writer. Beside these brethren from abroad, the local force of A.M.A. workers was large, and several neighboring churches of our Congregational faith sent their pastors.

At Jellico, the A.M.A. has planted both a church and a school, and built a meeting house. The interesting series of meetings, which began at Jellico, was for the purpose of dedicating the neat Congregational churches recently built by the Association along this line of railroad. Preaching services were held every afternoon and evening, the company of ministers taking turns, as they pushed on from one church to another. These churches are at Jellico, Pleasant View, South Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Woodbine, Rockhold and Corbin. Congregationalism, through the A.M.A., has taken possession of this whole region in the name of Christ. We can easily hold it in the interests of broad and evangelical Christianity, if our older Congregational churches in the East and North arouse themselves to meet the pressing exigencies, and realize the splendid [pg 203] possibilities that lie before them in this field to-day, but which will be denied them in the near future.

One very interesting feature of these meetings was the dedication of a chapel which has been recently added to the Williamsburg church, and which is used for the infant class of the Sunday-school. This class had outgrown all the accommodations of the church, in connection with the other departments of the Sunday-school. It had become a Sunday-school of itself. This chapel was, therefore, built and publicly set aside for the service of these little folks.

During these meetings, our honored Corresponding Secretary and District Secretary pushed through the storms and forded mountain streams together with the other brethren, that they might keep the appointments which had been made for them. Dr. Roy's stereopticon views, which have interested and instructed so many audiences in the North, he used with great profit during this mountain campaign.

Two men called upon Brother Myers, our general missionary in this mountain region, and requested that he and the writer visit the field, some fourteen miles away, from which they had come that morning. They told a thrillingly interesting story of how God's Spirit had entered their hearts, and stirred them up to desire better things for their children and their community than they had enjoyed. One of them was a son of a French Catholic mother, and had early adopted her faith. His life had been wild and reckless, until he found the Saviour in a meeting led by an A.M.A. missionary. He was an intelligent man of some education. He found others ready to join him in a movement for the elevation of the people. They established a church and organized a Sunday-school. We pushed over the mountain on horseback, after the other visiting brethren had left the mountain region, to inspect personally this field. We found it even as the men had represented it to be. A little church had been organized and Sunday-school gathered. I could learn of no other Sunday-school in that region. I heard afterwards, that one of the old-time preachers warned the people against the Sunday-school, saying, "It war a heap worse than a dancing place." This same preacher had a vision, and gave an account of it to his people. "Two devils," he said, "had been in that country getting up some sort of an institution that they called a church." He warned his people against them.

The two men who visited us at Jellico, together with others who had joined with them in this effort to Christianize and educate this community, we found busy on a hillside, laying the foundations of the new "church house." They were enthusiastic in this new movement, which promised so much to their community. They had drawn up a confession of faith and covenant, which were evangelical and Congregational. They reported [pg 204 ] three thousand people living in the coves and valleys radiating from the point upon which they had planted their "church house," absolutely without intelligent Christian instruction of any kind. There were hundreds of square miles without a