and deeded the lot to the A. M. A., and also contributed $50 to the building. I then headed a subscription paper with $50, and the people here added enough by timber and labor to make in all $300.

I then employed a man to put in a good foundation of split stone, laid in masonry and elevated twenty inches above the ground, the size of the building to be 50×47 feet, including tower.

What next? It was to hew a white oak frame in the forest and haul it to the building spot, then have it framed. At length I invited men to raise it, and women to bring a dinner.

When gathered we sought, with uncovered heads under the blue sky, the blessings of heaven on the future of the house and freedom from accident during its erection.

At 11 A. M. the school, marshalled by its worthy teacher, Mrs. Lord, came and marched around the walls and waiting timber with songs of greeting, and when the song ended, the men responded with three lusty cheers for the school. At sunset the frame stood on its solid base.

There stood the bones, but where was the flesh? I took my men, and, with axes and saws, we went to the forest to fell the trees for logs; but when a few were sawed the mill failed. Must we give it up? Not yet. In the saddle I went down the mountain to Lost Creek, sixteen miles, and to Sparta, seventeen, for lumber. Through much hardship it was hauled, it taking two days for a good team to make one trip, and sometimes getting a thorough soaking in a storm by a night camp-fire. Some forty loads were dragged up the steep mountain and on to Pleasant Hill. This coming up the Cumberland Mountains with a load means much more than a stranger can comprehend. When it takes three hours to go two miles we may suppose there is some pulling. You can find some hills in Western Massachusetts and in Maine, but they are mole mounds as compared with the brow of these mountains. But the men who had the hauling in charge were patient and faithful to the last.

The work went slowly on for lack of funds. Twice it stopped, and no sound of saw or hammer was heard. Some prophesied it would take seven years to complete the building. Troubled dreams and wakefulness came, and sleep said, “If you don’t go on with the work I will not come to you.” I then said to the carpenter: “Come Monday morning, and I will be responsible for your pay.” He came, and Monday’s mail brought me $6 from the Sunday-school in Edgecomb, Me. I paid the carpenter Saturday night, and said, “Come again.” He came, and Monday’s mail at 11 A. M. brought $7 from the Sunday-school in East Orrington, Me. Rebuked for my lack of faith, I said, “Come again,” and the third Monday at 11 A. M. brought $25 from that noble man, Hon. J. J. H. Gregory, of Marblehead, Mass., who always sells honest seed, and has also recently sent us a fine bell and paid the freight on it.

Slowly the building grew, till, by much tug and toil, where markets and railroads were far away, and even money absent, to-day the house stands finished.

The last thing, the furnishing, is being done. So we are planning to christen it with services there next Sabbath, and on Monday enter it with our growing and promising school, which, ere long, if friends stand firm to its interests, is to be one of the bright lights in the State of Tennessee.

So much for the new house on the Cumberland Mountains.

HOW HAS IT BEEN DONE?

“Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.”

It is the Lord’s work, through his dear children. He has awakened in the hearts of Christian men, women, young people, and even little children, an interest in this work, so that, by closest attention and careful application of funds, God has enabled me to engineer the work till I can see that He means the house shall stand complete, without so much as a nickel of debt upon it.

We have also organized a Congregational Church, and have in connection with our work another church at Pomona, and Sabbath-schools in all three.

I preach twice each Sabbath, riding twelve miles in the saddle. With increasing faith in God and this mountain work, which demands much grace and not a little grit, I ask the prayers of those who pray.

THE INDIANS.

A VISIT TO THE DAKOTAS.

BY SECRETARY J. E. ROY.

In 1871, on a tour of home missionary supervision in Dakota, I came over the Missouri in a canoe, the only mode then of transportation to this Santee Agency School. I found here Rev. A. L. Riggs, who had come the year before to take up the newly initiated work of Rev. J. P. Williamson, who removed up the river thirty miles to open a mission upon the reservation of the Yankton Sioux. At that time Mr. Riggs had already displaced the cabin home and cabin school-house by a frame residence and a frame chapel school-house about 30×50. Now I find that the chapel has been spread out upon the sides and elongated in the rear, with sliding doors to shut off each of the several new parts into additional recitation and Sunday-school rooms, and the whole to be crowded for morning prayers and Sabbath service. There have also come on, the Dakota Home for Young Women, the Bird’s Nest for Little Children and the Cottage for Little Boys, each of the three under a matron, and the Dakota Hall for Young Men, with one of the teachers’ families there in charge. Then come the well-built shops for shoemaking, carpentry and blacksmithing; and lastly, the three-story dining-hall, with accommodation for a hundred and fifty at the tables, with rooms for teachers and workers, and a whole story yet to be finished off, when funds are in hand, to accommodate more girls. The whole is heated by furnaces and supplied with the most approved apparatus for cooking, baking and laundry work.

But, beyond this expanding of the shell, I find the inner institution matured into a good deal of character and strength. Though it has grown by itself, it has come to be very much like our best boarding-schools at the South. The course of the year makes up more than two hundred pupils, and there are now here one hundred and thirty. The mass of them have learned the English, and the classes are taught in it. Many of them have been advanced in English studies. The régime everywhere takes on the Christian type. A great majority of the scholars have been brought to a personal acquaintance with Christ. A good number of teachers and preachers have already been sent forth. Music—vocal and instrumental—brings in its refining influence. A splendid corps of teachers is employed. Every pupil, male and female, has some work to do. The shops for blacksmithing, carpentry and shoemaking have each a competent workman as instructor, and those departments are run under the closest inspection. I have seen one Indian doing a fine job of shoeing horses, that most important of all work in blacksmithing.

Mr. Riggs, the father of the Theological Institute of Chicago Seminary, has brought the same feature in here. And so for two weeks, about twenty-five men, young pastors and divinity students, coming in from their fields, are drilled in the practical Bible doctrines and methods of preaching and pastoral work. The lectures have run from two to four in a day. Clearly it has been a season of stimulus and of replenishment to the young brethren. Those who were pleased with the young people from this school, who sang at the Chicago Council, at the New Haven Anniversary and over the East, last fall, will be glad to learn that at least half a hundred of equal cultivation could be sent out as specimens. Three native teachers are here employed, and they can use either language. It has been a great delight