HEMENWAY FARM.
This is entirely a negro affair; no white person lives on the place. Its Christian character and influence are earnest and emphatic. Nothing in the Hampton system is more satisfactory than this farm. I hope others like it will be provided for other institutions, but to fit up an old Southern farm after buying it, costs about as much as the land costs.
An unexpected advantage of the farm is its being an excellent place for a badly-behaved Indian boy, when only one is sent there. He is punished by being separated from his old friends, but the ten colored fellows carry him along in their daily routine of work and study; he has no one to “cut up” with; he improves in spite of himself; the plan has never failed to work well; he finally likes it and returns changed for the better.
REVIVAL IN CENTRAL CHURCH, NEW ORLEANS.
W. S. ALEXANDER, D.D.
It has been our custom in previous years to begin our special religious meetings the first of January in connection with the “Week of Prayer.” But this year the Church seemed in readiness at an earlier date, and we felt that we were obeying the call of the Lord to “go forward” when we began our special effort to reach the impenitent, on the night of December 1st. The Friday preceding had been observed as a day of fasting and prayer. For many days the spirit of prayer and consecration had been evidently deepening upon the part of the great majority of the Lord’s people. People who, for some trivial reason, had been alienated, came together in the spirit of forgiveness. A great desire was expressed, and I have no doubt felt, to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. Our lady missionary with unsurpassed devotion, visited all the families of the congregation, making in the short space of ten weeks some 600 visits. The effort was made to reach every one who sustained even a nominal relation to our church, as a member or casual attendant, and invite him to our revival services.