Mr. Wm. B. Spooner, of Boston, left by will $3,000, the income of which is to be expended for the education of the colored people at the South. He also made liberal provision for the State Total Abstinence Society and the National Temperance Society of New York, besides other bequests to worthy objects.
Mr. John T. Crawford, of Cincinnati, has left an estate valued from $30,000 to $100,000, to be applied for a home for aged colored men. His directions were that the institution be built on College Hill. There seems to be some doubt about the ability of the executors to carry out the conditions of the bequest.
The American Presbyterian Board of Missions has received from the estate of the late Mrs. Lapsley, of New Albany, Ind., the sum of $215,000, with the prospect of receiving $60,000 or $70,000 more from the same source.
GENERAL NOTES.
Africa.
—Sir Garnet Wolseley has given to the Berlin Missionary Society a large tract of land in South Africa to be used for a Mission Station.
—The mission at Frere Town, East Central Africa, has proved an inviting rendezvous for run-away slaves. The missionaries have no power to keep them, but have opportunity to expostulate with their owners for any cruelties they may inflict upon them. The practical result is that the masters become intimidated and angry, and would make an end of the missionaries if they had the power. The settlement has already been threatened with destruction. It is hoped, however, that the impending calamity may be over-ruled, to the overthrow of slavery on the coast.
—The Victoria Nyanza Mission of the C. M. S., despite every difficulty and disappointment, still exists. Letters from Uganda bring intelligence down to Aug. 14. It appears that Mtesa had engaged Mr. Pierson to build him a boat, and that Mr. Litchfield, in company with Mr. Mackay, had made a journey to Uyui, arriving at that point June 5. As the locality proved favorable to Mr. Litchfield’s health he intended to remain there with Mr. Copplestone, while Mr. Mackay had gone back to Uganda. These brethren are cheered by the belief that the hearts and minds of many of the heathen with whom they have labored have been prepared for the Gospel.
Mr. Litchfield writes: “I have invariably found the poor people ready and eager to listen to the story of the cross. Numbers of instances rise up before me as I write, where the hearers have testified their astonishment and joy at the love of Jesus in dying for them. Do not give away an inch,” he says, “if the place is proposed to be given up. On Dec. 23 we had that crushing vote to reject Christianity and stop our teaching. Now things are changing and public opinion is coming round in our favor. The hand is on the plow and we must not look back.”