The American Missionary | Page 8

try to love and serve one another here, in Christ's name, and others when released; strive to do your work faithfully; in short, try to do what you think Christ would want you to do--first, give me your hand, and then kneel with me in prayer. Through the chinks and crevices of the stockade a score of men thrust their hands, eager to respond to the invitation, and many knelt in prayer.
How much was make-believe? How much was genuine? The Searcher of hearts alone knows. Sowing by all waters, I am willing to leave results with God.
Another song, and then "Good-bye, boss!" "Good-bye, Captain!" "Come again, preacher!"
The days were weeks, and then! Criminal carelessness, perhaps. A premature explosion of dynamite and powder combined on the railroad, and six of these men had been discharged. Dead! A rough grave beside the track, God knows the rest. They were convicts, they were blacks, but they were my brothers and yours, children of one Father.
I was tired that Sunday, but I am glad God let me go and give them another invitation to the Christ-life. Perhaps in some other time and place I shall talk over that service among the boys in black at Convict Camp, with a soul in white over there. Who knows?

A BRIGHT AND CANDID VIEW OF OUR MOUNTAIN WORK.
The following letter comes from a member of the "Andover Band," three of whom entered the work among the American Highlanders last year. It is the first band of theological students organized in any of our seminaries for work in the field of the American Missionary Association. It was a very interesting movement and worthy the seminary that has sent out bands into other parts of the country which have accomplished great results.
The testimony is set forth by Prof. John C. Campbell, a cultured young man, who looks on this interesting work with a fresh vision and gives opinions well balanced respecting this field and others.
It should be said that the letter was not written for publication.

The year has been trying and wearing, but I take great satisfaction in knowing that much has been accomplished. We have established ourselves in the hearts of the people, I believe, and have the respect and co-operative interest of the best men in this and adjoining counties, so I hope for great things in the future if our friends in the North will only help us.
Suspicion has given way to confidence, and I may even fire broadsides at the tobacco habit now, even if it hits home. They are a trying, promising, and loveable people. I admire those of my classmates who have heard the voice of God (not the prompting of inclination) calling them to remain in dear old hair-splitting New England; but, while I admire their bravery, I am sorry for them, for it must seem as if they were striking in the air. Here we see the enemy, and can strike directly at him, and one has some satisfaction in getting weary and sick at heart in fighting at great odds against a visible power instead of the more subtle powers "of the air." But I digress! It is such a temptation to let myself out when communicating with one who understands this discouraging, fascinating, and encouraging work. This year's work has given me experience, as well as gray hair, and even if my labors in the South should terminate this year, I should feel that I had gained a great deal. I wish that all Northerners could come to know the best element of the South, and show their magnanimity as victors by helping the American Missionary Association do the work which alone will make a new South. To me the South presents a touching but heroic picture as she struggles nobly, but somewhat uncertainly, toward the light, still the victim of her cavalier training, still held back by the poor black and the poor white, the products of her accursed institution. Now that is all abolished, she needs help from the North. I doubt if we in the North would be any better had we been placed in the same environment, and our superiority may be due as much to soil, climate, and the consequent unprofitableness of slave labor, as to our Puritan ancestry.
The tide of immigration is beginning to turn toward this State from Georgia, and many coming from the Dakotas. The mass of ignorance is appalling. I realize in part, I think, the difficulty of getting the needs of the whites before a sympathizing audience. When it comes to a white man's needs and his condition, too many church members and others substitute the scientific theory of the survival of the fittest for Christ's law of love. They forget too, I fear, that many of these people in