It will be seen by these statements that the entrance to our different fields of labor has been thrown open more widely. We must settle the question as to whether we shall enter; but to enter means continued and efficient occupancy. “Occupy till I come” is the command of the Great Teacher. The gate is not open to a haven of rest, but to a field of labor, and additional labor calls for additional expense. Nothing short of an increase of 25 per cent. of the income of the Association will be adequate to meet the increased demands. The pastors and officers of the churches are our most effectual helpers in raising the amount required. Will they not come to our relief right early? The people will give of their means if the work and its wants are properly presented to them; and if God has set before us these open doors, surely He will add His blessing as we enter.
INTEMPERANCE IN THE SOUTH.
One of the “decisive battles” to be fought by and in behalf of the colored people of the South is on the field of intemperance. Slavery made this vice impossible. Emancipation, with all its manifold blessings, opened the gates to its entrance, and these once opened, it now pours in like a flood.
The cannonading has already begun in some of the Southern States in regard to prohibition, local option and other legal safeguards; but in this, as in other battles, small arms and the hand-to-hand fight must win the victory. Man by man, must the victims of this vice be warned and rescued, and especially must the young, individual by individual, be instructed, warned, pledged to personal abstinence, and enlisted in the work of saving others. The schools of the American Missionary Association are the very citadels of drill and equipment in this warfare. Their students must be the vanguard in the onset, and the “old guard” that “never surrenders” in the hottest fight.
We rejoice to know that our schools and their students are alert and active in their duties in this respect. Temperance literature and the prayers of God’s people are invoked in their behalf.
THE LAST MAN.
REV. C. P. OSBORNE.
The first man is named by sacred history. Scientific prophecy ventures to tell us who the last man is to be.