At the “Home” we have three meetings Sunday evenings: one for women, one for boys, and a girls’ class prayer meeting, with a kindergarten for the little ones during the week.
One of the pleasant incidents in our winter’s work has been the distribution of five barrels of clothing from kind friends at the North. The people are poor, but not penurious. A girls’ sewing class has sent $21, the avails of their handiwork, for the Mendi Mission, and the church appropriates the “weekly offering” once a month towards the pastor’s salary.
It is truly delightful to see the readiness of this people for religious instruction, and to witness the fruits of our labor in their marked elevation. They are quick, industrious, pleasing, and unobtrusive in their manners, with a decided distaste for “loudness” of every sort; showing, too, as much decorum at church, and as proper a regard for the Sabbath, as I have ever seen in any community.
From all which, it may be inferred that here, at least, the uplifting process has already passed the stage of incipiency.
LOUISIANA.
Concert—Last Year’s Graduates—Gifts Acknowledged.
PROF. J. K. COLE, STRAIGHT UNIVERSITY.
We have reached another mile-stone in our school work. Many of our older pupils, especially the senior class, would have been glad to keep in harness, but circumstances were favorable for a two days’ break in school routine, and we have it.
Last evening the singing class, under the direction of Prof. McPherron, gave a concert at Central Church. The house was filled with as fine an audience as could be gathered in any city. There was a generous sprinkling of “white folks,” including several of the local board of trustees and other appreciative friends. The proceeds will help some of our needy students to books; while a greater and more lasting good will result from the influence of the music sung—not upon those only who took part in the singing, but upon the large audience who listened so attentively, and who were cheered and encouraged by what the young people of their race are doing.