“Robert Arthington, Esq., Leeds, England. Dear Brother: * * * * Further information about the requirements of the mission and the territory to be occupied have been gathered, so that on the receipt of your letter, we felt called of God to take definite action. Our Executive Committee, with prayerful gratitude to God, interpreted your communication as an indication from Him that the time had come for us to go forward. Accordingly they voted to accept your bountiful gift and to undertake the preliminary work needful during the coming year. Among the persons with whom we had been in communication was Rev. Henry M. Ladd, the son of a missionary, who had spent 17 years of his early life at Smyrna and other localities in the East, before coming to this country to study for the ministry, and who was presumed to have peculiar fitness as the leader of the new mission. On receiving your letter, we obtained an interview with Mr. Ladd, and after a full and prayerful deliberation, we tendered him the superintendency of our African Missions, and this week he writes us as follows: ‘I hereby accept the position, praying the great Head of the church for His blessing on the arduous work undertaken in His name.’
“We learned last spring from Gordon Pacha, the late Governor-general of the Soudan, that it would be necessary to secure certain privileges from the Egyptian Government, assuring protection to the missionaries, the privilege of navigating the Upper Nile, etc. This we trust may be accomplished in part, at least, by correspondence, upon which we can enter directly. Meanwhile, inasmuch as the best season for starting from Cairo and the mouth of the Sobat commences about the first of October, we desire Mr. Ladd and a physician to be on the ground at that time, to take advantage of the favorable weather of the latter part of autumn and the early winter, to visit the territory it is proposed to occupy, and determine about the location, and the men and facilities needful in order to insure the success of our new work.
“We are seeking prayerfully and most earnestly under God, to lay enduring foundations, and to build up a work which may extend over the utterly destitute region of country, included in the boundaries, marked out, we believe, so wisely and prayerfully by yourself. We now most cheerfully, and relying upon God hopefully, are ready to undertake the great work you have suggested to us.”
GROWTH OF NEGRO POPULATION IN THE SOUTH.
The negro most perversely and persistently refuses to do what has been prophesied of him, or to conform to the general rules enumerated as applicable to him.
The census reports for 1880 reveal the last and most striking phase of this, perversity, as may be seen in the following table taken from the New York Herald, comparing the colored population of the old slave States, except Texas, in 1870, with that of 1880:
| STATES. | 1870. | 1880. |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 475,510 | 600,141 |
| Arkansas | 122,169 | 210,622 |
| Delaware | 22,794 | 26,456 |
| Florida | 91,689 | 125,262 |
| Georgia | 545,142 | 724,654 |
| Kentucky | 222,210 | 271,462 |
| Louisiana | 364,210 | 483,898 |
| Maryland | 175,391 | 209,896 |
| Mississippi | 444,201 | 652,221 |
| Missouri | 118,071 | 145,046 |
| North Carolina | 391,650 | 531,316 |
| South Carolina | 415,814 | 604,325 |
| Tennessee | 322,331 | 402,991 |
| Virginia | 512,841 | 631,756 |
| West Virginia | 17,980 | 25,729 |
The increase in these States during this decade has been more than 33 per cent., and at the same rate will give us at the beginning of the next century more than ten millions of negroes in these States alone. During the same time, the per cent. of increase in the white population has been less than 28 per cent., which will give something over eighteen millions as their total white population in 1900.