The mid-winter series of meetings, both at the college and the two mission chapels, were blessed to several conversions. Young people have been schooled in a vigorous Society of Christian Endeavor. Mission Sunday-schools and neighborhood prayer-meetings have been carried on with growing interest. The different benevolent societies have had their claims presented in turn; something has been given to all; and if the offerings have been small, they have, it is believed, been weighted with prayer.
Important repairs, so far as means are afforded, are to be made by industrial students. Board is now to be made cheaper, and, with, no less attention to fundamental branches, more is to be done in developing college studies; and theological training, a strong point from the beginning, is still to be kept in the foreground. At the close of another good year, the college looks hopefully towards the future.
COMMENCEMENT AT TOUGALOO UNIVERSITY.
Whatever else we may have or fail to have at our annual Commencement time, we always expect rain, and we are rarely disappointed in this particular. This year rain was so greatly needed, and had been so long devoutly wished for, that it was one of our causes of rejoicing. However, the showery character of the weather prevented our having the usual full attendance on Commencement Sabbath; but by Commencement day we had many visitors from a distance, who, with our school family and people from our own vicinity, filled all the space of our new chapel—not quite so closely as it might have been packed, but comfortably full; the largest attendance being had at the concert, Wednesday evening, June 1. These concerts grow in excellence and in favor from year to year, and our choir has, besides, won some modest laurels, singing outside the University, which it has worn as modestly.
Our Sunday-school is always delightful, and nothing else is ever permitted to take its place. At the close of this year we had the pleasure of disposing of seventy dollars of Sunday-school money. Forty dollars were voted to missionary work in Africa, twenty-five to library books, and five to the State temperance lecturer of Mississippi. A larger average attendance than ever before was reported.
On Sunday afternoon a Home Mission Institute was held. A list of topics was presented two weeks beforehand, but no set speeches or prepared papers were given. The young people, led by President Pope, did nearly all the talking, and it was good to hear the earnest and practical way in which they discussed such topics as these:
“What can we do—
“To secure the better observance of the Sabbath?”
“To introduce good reading matter into the homes of the people?”