They are in the best condition that I have ever seen. The teachers are doing well, and the new pastor has taken hold most earnestly and successfully.
No one can question the bringing in of the mountain people, both in church and school. More than two-thirds of the pupils are of native families, and the native people are filling the church. Mr. Dorman, the new pastor, has put the second service into the evening again, so as to get more of the mountain folk, and he succeeds. It was a grand thing to get him, coming with so good an education and devoted spirit. The people are feeling happier than for years, and coöperating cordially.
The institute is full. They cannot get on without more room. In the primary grade they enroll sixty-nine, and have seats for twenty-eight. The attendance is fairly well up to the enrollment and they absolutely cannot get on long this way. It is a splendid work. The American Missionary Association has reason to be proud of it, but it seems imperative to have more room.
The work all over this portion of the mountains is thoroughly encouraging.
GOSPEL TRANSFORMATIONS.
BY A MOUNTAIN PREACHER.
This autumn has been for me a season of hard labor, and, at the same time, one of great rejoicing. For more than a month I have been laboring night and day almost incessantly striving to lead souls to Jesus, and the dear Lord has blessed me to see more than thirty happy conversions. Tired, almost exhausted, still I must press on, for there is yet much to be done.
In the meetings held this fall I have realized more fully than ever before in my life the mighty power of the Spirit, and the blessedness of the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ.
At a place in Scott County, Tenn., where I held a ten days' meeting, this fact of the Holy Spirit's power and the blessedness of the Christian religion was most beautifully illustrated, as the following incident will show.