ALABAMA SUNDAY-SCHOOL CONVENTION.
Young Man with Backbone—Refreshing Gathering.
PROF. GEO. N. ELLIS, TALLADEGA.
We have just returned from the Fifth Annual Conference of the Congregational Churches of Alabama and the first meeting of the State Sunday-school Association held at Selma.
This Association was organized only last year at Montgomery, so this was our first gathering. We had a glorious, a soul-stirring time. The Convention opened Friday evening, March 26th, with a sermon by President DeForest of Talladega.
I summarize reports as follows:
Thirteen schools were represented by delegates, four by written reports, one by letter; their aggregate shows over thirteen hundred teachers and scholars in attendance, seventeen hundred volumes in libraries, one hundred and eighty dollars raised, and one hundred conversions. This does not include the schools taught by our students through the summer, although they are really a part of our work. This brief sentence gives no idea of the interest with which these reports were given and received, or of the amusing or touching incidents connected with the giving.
Mission Schools.—It will not do to pass these by unnoticed. It is marvelously surprising how quickly the love of Christ, once received into their own hearts, inspires this people to go out and seek for others.
We have three such schools about Talladega. Selma and Mobile report one each. Childersburg has a county association.
The superintendent of the mission school at Selma gave an interesting account of his experience in organizing and conducting it. By the way, he is the young man recently mentioned in the Advance, who refused a position, worth $25 per month, in a store, because whiskey was sold there, which he might sometimes have to handle. It takes moral backbone in this country to stand up for temperance. I learned something of this young man’s history. He is making every effort to educate himself and at the same time partially supports a widowed mother with her large family. He will make his mark in the world; moreover, what he is as to character is largely due to the faithful efforts of a patient teacher.