REV. J. D. SMITH, SHELBY IRON WORKS.
During the first week in October we set apart Wednesday as a day of fasting and prayer. On the following Sabbath we commenced a series of meetings, which continued three weeks. Brother H. W. Conley stopped off here on his way from Marion back to Talladega, and preached and labored very faithfully with us several days. Brother J. W. Strong came down and labored with me, preaching the word almost every night for over a week. Brother Jones, of Childersburg, paid us a short visit, and Rev. F. J. Tyler, of this place, pastor of the Union Church (white), preached for us. Last of all came Rev. G. W. Andrews, who preached several times.
Every evening, one half-hour before services, a number of Christians would assemble in the inquiry-room and converse with those who came to inquire of the way of salvation. I must say that the inquiry meetings were the means of great and untold good, as much or more than the sermons, perhaps.
Well, the meetings closed with twenty-one conversions reported. Last Sunday fifteen came forward, entered into covenant with the church, and were baptized, on profession of their faith. All of the candidates for baptism preferred sprinkling—the first instance, to my knowledge, where we did not have to immerse some out of so many uniting at one time; and, more singular than all, a Baptist father and mother presented their infant boy for baptism. When reminded by some of the Baptist brethren that they had “broken the rules of the church,” they replied by saying that if they had five hundred children, they would have them baptized, because it was right in the sight of God. The work has a more hopeful outlook for future prosperity than ever before.
Some eight or ten are to unite by letter, the first opportunity, who did not get ready in time to join last Sunday. Our total membership will then stand about fifty.
TENNESSEE.
A Student Aided.
REV. E. M. CRAVATH, FISK UNIVERSITY.
Our readers will remember a plea for student aid made by President Cravath in the Missionary for October. Soon after its publication this description of the first young man thus aided came, but has been delayed by the special matter which has claimed our columns. There are many more such at all our institutions awaiting similar help.
The first answer came in the shape of a draft for fifty dollars from a good friend of Rochelle, Illinois. On the same day with this answer a young man from Abbeville, S. C., came to Fisk University for the first time, and as he was a good representative of the class of young people for whom our appeal was made in the October Missionary, we assigned him at once to this scholarship.