American Missionary | Page 6

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A teacher from North Carolina sends the following:
There is not a girl in my school who uses tobacco, and that is saying a good deal. I cannot be so sure about the boys, but none use it in school or on the play ground.
One day our grammar lesson was changing possessive modifiers to equivalent phrases, and the sentence "Washington's farewell address" came up. One boy wrote, "Washington's farewell address was made of broadcloth."
A colored minister, after reading his text on Sunday, said, "I shall put the greatest distress of my remarks on the latter clause of the verse."
Another minister said, "At one of my stations there were men who called themselves conjurers. One of these with his followers went to church to challenge me. He asked me if I could cast out devils. I told him I could, and as he was the only man in the house who had a devil, if he would come up to the stand, I would cast the devil out of him. The conjurer abused me terribly, became so excited I started down towards him, and dared him to meet me, and he turned from me and ran out of the house, so you see if I could not cast the devil out of him, I cast both him and the devil out of the house."
At another place, he said, the people became very much stirred up concerning the temperance cause, so much so that many closed their bar-rooms and took their Jimmy Johns and poured the contents out on the ground. Said he, "the liquor said _good, good, good_, as it ran out of the Jimmy Johns, and the people shouted for joy."
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A DOCTRINAL SERMON.
By the kindness of a Baptist missionary, we are furnished with the following doctrinal sermon:
_Text._--"Ye are the salt of the earth."
Scene in a Baptist church. Nineteen candidates awaiting immersion.
My text am, "Ye are de salt of de yarth."
You all knows what salt am good for--it is good to sweeten things--good to season things--good to keep things from spilin'. We all likes salt in our victuals, some people likes lots of salt and dey has it too; some likes jes a little, and dey gets it too, but when you eats a whole lot of salt, you gits mighty thirsty, and you wants water, tea nor coffee won't satisfy you neither. You cries water, and you cries till you gits plenty of it. Bredren--de text says, "Ye am de salt of de yarth." What does it mean? Christians am like salt--we'se put here to keep this old yarth from spilin'--to sweeten and to season it. Some Christians have a heap more salt about 'em then others, and when dey is full of de salt of God's grace, their soul cries--_water_--_water_--and a few drops on der head won't satisfy 'em neither. You must take 'em down to de river and put 'em in. And that's what we'se goin' to do--come chillen.
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BOOK NOTICES.
_Report of the Centenary Conference of Protestant Missions, London, 1888._ By REV. JAMES JOHNSTON, F.S.S., Revell, Bible House, New York.
These two neat and well-printed volumes give a full sketch of the proceedings of one of the most remarkable Missionary Conferences ever held in the world. The addresses, papers and discussions emanated not from theorists, but from men actually engaged in the management of the great missionary organizations of Christendom, or who were actively employed as missionaries in foreign fields. In addition to these, there are papers and addresses by honored pastors on both sides of the Atlantic, by travelers, and by students of the progress of the church in modern times. The possessor of these volumes will have a treasury of missionary literature of inestimable value.
_The Path to Wealth._ By A BLACKSMITH, B.F. Johnson & Co., Richmond, Va.
This is a unique book. It purports to give the addresses of a practical blacksmith, some of them delivered in his shop to a few neighbors, but the audience becoming larger, the rest were given in an adjacent church building. To most persons, the title affords a slight clue to the drift of the book, which is to show the duty and the benefits of giving the tithe of a man's income to the Lord. The author's bottom thought is based on this statement in the preface: "God pledges himself for the success of that individual who renders obedience to the divine money-claim." In other words, the path to wealth is the path of benevolence. The obligation to give the tithe is earnestly enforced by the ordinary Scripture quotations, and by arguments drawn from other sources. Whatever the reader may think of the theory of the book, he will find in it a good deal of valuable and practical truth.
_Yale Lectures on