FAREWELL MEETING.
Friday morning was devoted to a “farewell prayer-meeting.” It was a most tender and impressive scene. As one after another spoke, “the fire burned”; every eye was wet with manly tears, and when the entire Conference rose and joined hands, and they sang or chanted an old refrain, peculiar to themselves, beginning “Good-by, and shake hands,” and we entered into covenant with God and with each other to go forth to another year of labor and self-denial, those dear brethren, in the excess of religious emotion, laughed and cried together. Thus was our meeting of 1878 brought to a close. The good pastor at New Iberia said: “Such a light was never kindled here before.” The Conference adjourned to meet in New Iberia next year, at the call of the Moderator.
Dear brethren of the North, pray for us, and remember that we are trying to hold this distant outpost of the Church, and to extend, in this beautiful and fruitful land, the cherished faith and polity of our fathers.
THE SINGERS TO THE MISSIONARIES, GREETING.
We give the following extracts from a letter, written by the Jubilee Singers, from Erfurt, Germany, to the new missionaries to Africa. From the fact that they are all Fisk University students, the greetings of the gleaners in Europe to the sowers in Africa is full of pathetic interest:
Erfurt, Germany.
To Albert P. Miller, Ada Roberts Miller, Andrew E. Jackson, and Ella Hildridge Jackson, Missionaries for Africa:
Dear Brothers and Sisters: The Jubilee Singers send greeting. Could we give you our greeting in person, it would be more satisfactory, as we can but feebly convey to you, in writing, how our hearts have gone out to you in love and sympathy, and up to God in thankfulness, since the glad tidings reached us of your having consecrated your lives and talents to mission work among our brethren in Africa. We have prayed and labored long for this day, and now, thank God, our prayers are being answered.
We realize in how large a degree our success has been attributable to the faithful prayers of you and your fellow-students, sent up daily in our behalf from Fisk University; and let us assure you that while you are doing battle for the Master, by helping to lift the dark pall of barbarism and superstition which enshrouds our kinsmen, you, in like manner, will be sustained by the prayers of your fellow students, and warm, earnest Christian hearts, not only in our own native land, but in Great Britain, Holland and Germany. They will follow your footsteps, faithfully and prayerfully, watching for the fruits which ye shall reap, in due season, if ye faint not, and rejoicing with you in the extension of Christ’s kingdom.