I spent Thanksgiving Day at Lowell, N.C. Our mission at this point is the only church in that vicinity. It was the first Thanksgiving service they had ever enjoyed or even heard of. It was held in a log cabin.
Lowell is the center of a large negro settlement; the people have had a hard lot, and but little opportunity to improve their condition. They are very grateful to hear the Gospel.
Forefather's day was observed by the Nashville churches in the theological hall of Fisk University. We "spiritual children" of the Pilgrims honor the fathers whose descendants have enriched us through the A.M.A. by the schools and churches that have been planted among us. The church at Lexington, Ky., had a season of "refreshing" in December, when several heads of families united with it. Howard church, Nashville, also had an awakening with good results. This church has increased its membership fifty per cent. in fifteen months. Jackson Street Church, Nashville, held a recognition service for its new pastor in January.
We were glad to greet the churches and brethren of Louisiana after an absence from them of two years. The Spain Street Church at New Orleans held a series of Gospel meetings in which a number avowed their faith in the Saviour, and the church was strengthened.
Straight University is crowded with an earnest class of students.
This school is doing a great work for the people of Louisiana and surrounding States. In spite of the hard times, which are very severe in the South (laborers in Louisiana and some other States receive only fifty cents a day and board themselves), the people are making great [pg 107] sacrifices for the education of their children, and our pastors and teachers are making heroic struggles that the work in school and church may go forward.
The need of the continuance of the work was never greater and the results of the service of our workers were never better. To retrench further at this time would not only cripple the work among the needy peoples of our field, but shut the door of opportunity in many places, and injure the people in their efforts to rise, and discourage our self-sacrificing missionaries. The people are grateful for these schools and churches and need more of them. We appeal to our Northern friends to come to the rescue of the American Missionary Association at this time.
A SCHOOLBOY'S COMPOSITION.
A little lad six years of age in the primary grade of Knox Institute, Athens, Ga., attended rhetoricals in which several pupils read compositions on the subject of America. He was greatly impressed, went home, and wrote without supervision the composition below. Although he has put the raccoon, lion and tiger among the birds, it is certainly a pretty good composition for the first one written by a child six years of age. Could any of the children six years old to whom THE AMERICAN MISSIONARY may come do better than this little black boy?