in 1863. During his college course his attention was often turned to the field for Christian work, then being opened in the South by the steady advance of our armies, and his sympathies were strongly enlisted for a race just coming out of the prison house of bondage, and he was ambitious to have a part in laying the foundations of a new and better society in the regions desolated by war.

He was appointed an officer of the Freedman's Bureau in 1867, with charge of the schools opened under its auspices in the State of Georgia, which position he held for three years, until the closing of that branch of the work of the government.

His great work, however, was in connection with Atlanta University, an institution for higher education, whose foundation he was active in securing, and over whose interests he presided until the day of his death. He labored for its welfare and that of the people in whose interests it was established with rare devotion, and rejoiced in its steady growth and prosperity with special personal gratification.

Owing to some peculiar circumstances the institution early secured the favorable attention of the State authorities, and an annual appropriation from the State treasury. In the endeavors to secure and confirm this grant he was conspicuously and honorably active, and during the many years of its continuance his relations to the officers of the State with whom he has thus been brought into contact have been exceptionally pleasant, and in some cases cordial.

During the last year of his life he took great interest in the successful opening of an industrial department in the institution, and for the last few weeks his great anxiety had been to secure the furnishing of a large new building whose erection he had personally overlooked. He had returned to Atlanta in advance of his family to make preparations for the school year soon to open, had completed most of his plans, and seemed in unusual good health and spirits. Soon after dinner on Friday, Sept. 25, feeling dizzy while in his own house, where he was alone, he sought the open air and walked toward the house of Professor Bumstead, but becoming alarmed by increasing faintness he made loud calls, which were promptly responded to by Mr. and Mrs. Bumstead; but in spite of all remedies and efforts he speedily passed away to enter upon his well-earned rest and his glorious reward. The crushing effects of this sudden blow upon his household, upon his associates and the people who loved and revered him, cannot be described. At his funeral services all classes of the community were largely represented, and sympathy for the bereaved was profound. The grief of former pupils was touching, and was like that of children bereft of a father.

So passed away in the maturity of his powers and the midst of his usefulness, one of the earliest and most efficient of that great company who have toiled since the war in this broad and needy field. His departure seems like a translation; being taken suddenly without the pains and anxieties of wasting sickness, in the full tide of his greatest success, before any impairment of vigor or any calamity had overtaken the work he loved so well. He was a man of great power over other men, especially over young people, who were caught up by his enthusiasm, and borne along sometimes to the attainment of surprising results. He was well fitted to be a leader in the sphere he chose for himself, and made his mark upon his generation, and had a large and honorable share in securing the results already achieved, which are to bless the State and nation with increasing power.

A good man has fallen, and a great gap is made in the ranks of laborers at the front; but the Lord who loves his own cause better than we do will see that it suffers no loss. As the Lord has taken care that his servant rests from his labors, it is ours to see that they follow Him.

IYAKAPTAPI.

That is, the ascent from the plains of the head-waters of the Minnesota River to the Coteau du Prairie, or high table-land to the west. The old trail up-hill here gave the name Ascension to the place. There the tribes—Dakota tribes—met together for their annual autumn feast—the missionary conference on the 24th of September. On the Sabbath the little church was too small, and 400 Indians, with a sprinkling of white people, sat outside in the sun, some on benches, and most on the grass, around the Communion table. The tents of those who had come in from long distances were pitched on either side in the ravines, among the fall foliage, and the wide brown plain, with a long gleam of shining lake far off, lay below. As we took the bread and hid our faces in our hands, we thought of that distribution by Galilee, when they sat in companies on the grassy slope by the lake. It was not "the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is still," but the real presence of Him who said "I am the bread of life," to these 400 Christian Indians whom He had brought up from the low, dead level of barbarism to the present heights of Christian life.

One little dark baby in a white dress was baptized, and four young people publicly confessed their faith in a newly-found Saviour.

Solomon, "His Own Grandfather," who has gathered a church of the Dakota refugees from the Minnesota troubles of 1862, over in Manitoba, spoke to us of the spiritual nature of God's kingdom; and Ehnamani, who years ago laid down his warrior weapons, administered the bread, telling us of the tribulation and fire through which Christ went to become bread for our life. Then the "beloved John," our brother missionary who threw his young strength into the Dakota work at its darkest hour twenty-five years ago, could hardly control the emotion with which he spoke of the trials out of which the Dakotas had been brought to this present joy and strength through "His stripes."

It has been a long ascent for fifty years, but now fourteen churches, with a thousand members; eleven young men's Christian associations; a native missionary society, receiving contributions amounting this year to $1,165, much of it the fruit of hard labor by Dakota women, with the needle and at the wash-tub; a Christian community with its own native justices of the peace, rigidly enforcing temperance and marital law, and, according to the testimony of the United States agent on the ground, more careful of religious observances than white communities, and no less exemplary in morals; thousands of acres of cultivated land; these are some of the outward signs of the inner life of God in the heart.

Add to this the 1,000 or more converts gathered in later years and claimed by Episcopalians and Roman Catholics; add the long roll of those who have ascended to their Lord; add the white people who have been saved and inspired by the example of their Dakota brethren, and compute if you can the spiritual fruit of the Dakota Indian Mission.

Then think of this result wrought out, in the midst of what is fast becoming one of the most influential communities of our land. Christian churches by hundreds, Christian colleges and Christian homes, all built on this early Indian work as a foundation. Then, as we rejoice in the present interest in work for Indians, remember the obloquy and opposition of the past through which the early workers struggled.

To appreciate this ascent, one should come up from Western Indian barbarism, and not down from Eastern culture.

Leave the nightly drumming and dancing and revelry, the daily offering to heathen gods, the daily wailing and cutting of the flesh at the scaffold of sepulture, and one will acknowledge that God alone has wrought this change.

Before the regular sessions of the conference a "theological institute" occupied two days. This was attended by some thirty pastors and leading members of the churches. There were lectures on Bible history, on