The American Missionary | Page 5

by others and even by their possessor, and are evoked only under favorable conditions, sometimes comparatively late in the youthful period of life. In a symmetrical course of study calculated to bring into exercise every mental faculty, somewhere, as by a touchstone, the particular aptitude of the pupil may be discovered, the secret springs of power be opened; and the man, having discovered himself, leaps forward to pre-eminence among his fellows. Scores of such men and women are among the students in the schools for the colored people of the South. A mere common education will not disclose their uncommon powers; they need the test of the best. And somewhere, at several central points at least, provision should be made for the higher education of the talented tenth as well as ordinary education for the other nine.
The great need of the colored people of the South is wise leadership along all lines of development; men of large and comprehensive views acquired by contact and communion with the world's great thinkers; such men are needed to-day even more than nine times as many with a little more practical knowledge concerning the use of the saw, the jack-plane and the blacksmith's forge. In our educational work for the colored people, therefore, proper provision should be made for the talented tenth.--DR. MOREHOUSE in The Independent.

ALASKA MISSION.
The following sentences from a personal letter of Miss Anna L. Dawes state a profound truth in terse and impressive form:
"If any one is willing to go up there and live with those Eskimos, I think the rest of us may well enough agree to help. Indeed, nothing has been so good for me for some time as his (Mr. Lopp's) visit. It not only makes our Christianity (mine at least) look like a mustard seed, but makes you wonder whether it isn't a dead seed at that! I have been to hear Mr. Moody to-day, but he didn't begin to give me such "conviction of sin" as the urgent and eager interest Mr. Lopp showed in going back to his people up there. I wonder just what the Lord does think of us all--some of us, anyway?"
Mr. Lopp, whom Miss Dawes refers to, is pleading for funds to make it possible to open the mission among the Eskimos. The American Missionary Association was obliged to discontinue it for a year on account of the straitened condition of the treasury. We are now making every effort to gather funds outside of the current income of the Association, that there may be at least one Christian mission conducted by Congregationalists in this great northern mission field. Mr. Lopp's plea for "his people" and abandon of self-sacrifice both on the part of himself and his wife, impress every one, as they did Miss Dawes.
This is the only mission of the Congregational denomination in Alaska. No other denomination plans to occupy this station if given up by the American Missionary Association. The work requires about five hundred dollars more than has been subscribed, and this must be in hand by the first of June, when it is necessary for Mr. Lopp to sail, if he goes this year.

THE SOUTH.

HISTORY OF A CHURCH IN ALABAMA.
BY REV. SPENCER SNELL.
The beautiful and healthful city of Talladega is located among the Appalachian foot hills. The First Congregational church was organized in the year 1868. The first members were people who came out of the colored Baptist Church, and who had begun to look for a more intelligent mode of worship and better religious instruction than it was possible to have in churches whose pastors had been slaves and were uneducated.
The first pastor of the church was Rev. H. E. Brown, of Ridgefield, O., whom the American Missionary Association had sent into the South. Since his retirement the pulpit has been occupied by several pastors, including the acceptable services of professors of Talladega College. My pastorate began in 1894.
There are friendly relations between our church and the other colored churches near at hand. The pastor is often invited to preach in the other churches. The pastors of two of the Baptist churches are graduates of our school here, and the pastor of one of the Methodist churches is now taking lessons in our seminary.
The present membership of the church is 219. Many of them are poor students who have to be helped through school. The resident members have but very little money. With one or two exceptions they receive small pay for what they do. Those who have trades find but little here to do and have to go away to get employment. Among the male members of the church are farmers, mechanics, etc., and among the females those who do laundry work, sewing, etc. Several of these women take the washing of families home and