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the alley. The streets are not very well kepi, but there is a large quantity of unskilled labor needed in the vicinity. Generally this section is very much neglected by the aldermen of the city, and not unfrequently greatly neglected by the health officers.

It is certain that this will always be a very thickly-settled section of the city. Large numbers of people will be there, though not many of them will stay there very long. It is also certain that as soon as they are able to move into a better section of the city they will go. As they become more skillful as workmen they will get better wages, and as they get better wages they will go to a better section. Among the boys and girls of this section there will be found bright, brainy children that will come to be foremen of gangs of hands and superintendents of mills and leaders among their own workmen, and when they become such they will move away from this neighborhood.

What, now, is to be done for this population of Jewhillicsville? Of course the history will repeat itself everywhere. By and by some energetic Christian young men and young women out of some of the better churches of the city will be moved with a spirit of missions. They will go down into Jewhillicsville and organize a mission Sabbath-school. If at first paper wads go flying across the room during prayer, that will be nothing new, and time will be required in order to tame down these barbarian children. But time and patience will do the work for them, and that Sabbath-school will be an orderly, energetic, large Sabbath-school. The children that came as ten, twelve and fifteen years old will in three or four years be young ladies and young gentlemen of sixteen, eighteen and twenty. The truth of God by the power of the Holy Ghost will have wrought in their hearts, and they will be converted. They know no other religious home than this same Jewhillicsville Sabbathschool, and so a church will be organized in that neighborhood. What is the future prospect of that church?

One thing is entirely clear: its future prospect will be always to be a mission

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church, and its pastor and elders will come year after year to the presbytery asking for "help from the Board." It will not be surprising if occasionally some pious elder from some other church in the presbytery objects to this eternal giving to that church in Jewhilliesville, which never grows to self-support. They are "tired of wasting the Board's money." It is entirely true that it does not become self-supporting. The reason has been already mentioned. Converted, cleaned up, made honest and energetic, its members become worth too much money to be left at the same salary which led them first to settle in Jewhillicsville; therefore they move to a better section of the city. If all of those converted and brought to the knowledge of the truth in the Jewhillicsville church would stay in Jewhillicsville, it would have been self-supporting long ago. Better wages took them to better sections of the city, and then they joined other churches and not unfrequently lament that that church in Jewhillicsville, where they were converted and from which they moved away, has not long ago become self-supporting.

Sometimes even pastors of large churches in the better sections of the city deal harshly with the pastor of that mission church in Jewhillicsville. They look down on him as some poor wretch laboring where he has no fruit, and complain that he is always dependent "on the Board." If now these pastors of large churches would look through their own rolls and honestly inquire how many of their own people have come out of that Jewhillicsville church into theirs, they would be very greatly surprised to find the number of wealthy families that had become Christians there. This is dangerous ground, and so it is not safe to even hint at all that is known in specific cases.

Miss Jones was a teacher in that Jewhil licsville Sabbath-school, and in her class was romping Billy Wilson. Now Billy was mischievous and bright; and by and by the grace of God took hold of his heart, and he became a lively, earnest Christian boy. One day Miss Jones asked him if he would not like to get a good place in her father's store, and of course that brightened and changed

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the boy's whole ambition for his future life. Miss Jones persuaded her father to take Billy in as store boy, and then she urged Billy to attentiveness and earnestness in his work. The grace of God was in Billy's heart, and the energy of his nature was in his work; and he rapidly improved, and with every perplexity came to Miss Jones to inquire the path of duty. Five or six years went on, and Billy came to be a confidential clerk. He never forgot his teacher nor the perplexities out of which she cleared the way. It was queer, but somehow by and by he came to have more perplexities about which he wished to consult his old teacher than he had formerly. And then what was still more wonderful, he seemed to have so many occasions of talking these perplexities over with Miss Jones' younger sister. He stayed longer to talk to the younger sister than he did to explain his perplexities to his old teacher. It was "the old story." Billy married that younger sister. He never would have married that girl, nor been allowed to come in her company at all, except by what that Sabbath-school in Jewhillipsville had done for him in transforming his whole character. Billy is now a middleaged man, flourishing in business, his beautiful wife and accomplished children the pride of his home and the pride of the church where they attend. Has he forgotten that he got his wife and all that he is himself out of that Jewhillicsville Sabbathschool? Why, now, should he and she in their aristocratic home talk unkindly of the church out of which that husband and father was taken?

Then, too, there is that faithful pastor of the Jewhillicsville church. He and his good wife, with the real spirit of missionary work, are not always patient under the coldness and unkindness of their more favored brethren. Nevertheless, he has quite as much piety as any man in the presbytery,

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and quite as many souls have been gathered into the kingdom according to the Record Book above. It is true that after his converts have been enrolled in his church membership a year or two they ask for letters to some other church. They have been made worth more financially by his power and influence and the grace of God in their hearts, and away they go to better situations and stronger churches, and he is left to toil on in his ministry.

If those rich churches were not reinforced by the new converts and the fresh blood from Jewhilliesville congregations, they would grow less rapidly and some of them would die out. As a mere question of selfpreservation and self-perpetuation, the Presbyterian Church cannot afford to neglect churches which are certain always to be mission churches. They feed and build the rich churches out of their converts. It is to the everlasting honor of the Methodist Church that it has so faithfully carried out this work in these humbler sections of the city, and on that Church God has put his seal for the fidelity with which it preaches the gospel to the poor.

The Jewhillicsville church does not enjoy a very euphonious name; but its work as shown by the additions on profession of faith and the baptism of children is an evidence of its value to the world. The men and women brought out of it into the active work of the kingdom of God-if they shall forget the place from whence they came, it will be to their disgrace. If, on the other hand, they will stand by their humble church and their mission school, and like Miss Jones, out of their rich homes go in plain dress to labor among the poor, their reward will be found on high, and he who "came not to be ministered unto, but to minister," will invite them to the kingdom he has prepared for just such as they are.

GEO. P. HAYS.

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Prof. Christlieb-Migration of Negroes.

PROF. THEOD. CHRISTLIEB.

One of the noblest of transatlantic German theologians has passed away. Dr. Christlieb a lover of Christ in name and reality entered his eternal reward August 14, 1889. He was only fifty-six years old at his death, at Bonn on the Rhine. Dr. Christlieb was an eminently practical theologian, a master of pulpit oratory, a warm friend and defender of foreign and home missions. His exterior expressed his interior: he was a remarkably fine-looking man. At the gatherings of the "Alliance" at New York in 1873 he captivated all hearts by his paper On Unbelief and by his personality. At that time he repeated his paper, by request, to a vast audience in Dr. Adams' church, and delivered an ever-memorable German sermon in Dr. Crosby's church on the text "I am the Lord, that healeth thee.". The American Tract Society spread Dr. Christlieb's paper in book form among the Germans in America. With others he edited a monthly German magazine on missions, and brought it about that the study

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of missions received a place in the theological curriculum of German universities. He felt the needs of the German evangelical Church keenly, and established an institution at Bonn, "The Johanneum," where practical church workers (evangelists) were trained as helpers to pastors. THE CHURCH AT HOME AND ABROAD (July, 1888, page 6) has an interesting article from Dr. Christlieb's pen entitled Pious Peasants and Iron-founders in Germany." Wherever,

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along the Rhine, a convention in the inter-
est of mission work was held, Prof. Christ-
lieb was a leading figure. The "Wupper-
thaler Fest-woche" at Elberfeld, Barmen,
missed him greatly this year. The breth-
ren prayed earnestly for him. The German
Moody, Schrenck, hurried to Dr. Christlieb's
bedside and prayed with him. The disease
seemed to be stayed; all were awed; but on
the day following intense sufferings again
set in, and Prof. Christlieb passed away to
joy everlasting.
H. J. WEBER.

PHILADELPHIA.

MIGRATION OF NEGROES.

Those who carefully note the signs of the times have observed a growing uneasiness among the Negroes in the South. This feeling has various causes and manifestations, and is hopeful or ominous according to circumstances. Some one has said "discontent is the mother of effort." So long as there exists perfect satisfaction with one's condition there will be no effort to better it. The effect is the same when the condition is hopelessly bad. The Negroes surely were not content with their condition during slavery, but they knew of no other that was possible to them. Hence there was little individual and no organized movement looking to a change. But with freedom came a different knowledge and a higher aspiration. Some early realized the possibilities of the new future and have been struggling upward all these years. It is only in the recent past, however, that the determination to better their condition by

breaking away from old scenes and surroundings has widely spread among these marvellously-patient people, and it cannot yet be called general.

That there is a growing desire among the Negroes in various parts of the South to realize some of the better conditions of life is apparent. It is vague, as yet, with most, and but few have clearly in mind what they want or how to attain it. Fortunately for the peace of society, the Negroes are generally satisfied with little. Their desires are not unreasonable, and they do not seek their own advancement by injury to others. There is no socialism or communism among them. They are largely farmers. State and county agricultural fairs are becoming common in the South. Sometimes the colored people exhibit in the white fairs; more frequently they have exhibitions of their own. These are a wonderful stimulus and encouragement to them. They see that, when they

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put forth intelligent effort, God in nature will do as much for them as for the whites. But they find themselves handicapped in the race with their white neighbors. White men own all the soil in the older states. When they are willing to sell to a colored man-which is not always-they will sell only the less desirable portions of land, or sell at prices that make it almost impossible for the purchaser to pay for it. Many a poor fellow, after a heroic struggle for five or ten years against poverty, interest, extortion and bad crops, has seen his little farm, partly paid for, go back to its original owner under foreclosure of mortgage. It is almost vain for such a man to hope for an improvement of his condition in the older parts of the South. Farm wages are so low as to make it impossible for a man with a family to accumulate anything while working for another.

Is it any wonder that these people listen eagerly to stories of the fertile West, where land can be had very cheap, where crops are large and wages high? That they are awake to the idea of bettering their condition is a hopeful sign. Theirs is the same sort of mental process as that which has moved the multitudes of sturdy, energetic young white men from the Northeast to the Northwest, and has covered those beautiful western prairies with waving harvests. If the colored people were stupidly indifferent to their hard lot, theirs would be a hopeless case indeed, and would discourage those who seek their improvement.

Emigration movements in the South are gradually taking intelligent form. Not long since representative colored men were sent out from North Carolina to Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas and Kansas, to look carefully into the inducements offered by those states to immigrants of color. Since their return with a favorable report five hundred families have emigrated from Wilmington, N. C., and it is asserted that by January 1. 1890, 35,000 Negroes will have left eastern North Carolina for homes in the West. This is probably an overestimate, but it is certain that the movement has assumed large proportions.

WHAT WILL BE THE RESULT?

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1. There will be some bad effects. There is always a loss in the breaking up of old associations and in the exchange of the habits of an established Christian society for those of frontier life. All of us are more or less indebted to society for wholesome restraints. We cannot and ought not to be unmindful of the good opinion of neighbors and friends. This influence becomes doubly important when there is a serious lack in mental and moral training. The colored people love to feel that they have the good opinion of others, especially of the whites whom they have always known and honored. This restraining, helpful influence will be largely lost by their removal to a distant portion of the land.

Again, the moral standards in new communities are often low and the religious teaching very defective. It is true that the old life in these respects has not been what it should be, but it is improving in the old states, and a removal to new regions will make it more difficult for the emigrants to live as they ought and to train their children aright.

Finally, the churches left behind will keenly feel the loss of some of those going away who have been strong workers and liberal givers.

2. But good results will also follow any wisely-directed movement of emigration.

The faith of these people in the West has a good foundation. There is abundant land there which is both fertile and cheap. It can be had on such terms that a colored man with a large family can buy a farm that will well support him and his. What is more, he can pay for it. The largest expenditure in developing his new farm will be in labor, and that he can furnish. When he has wrought faithfully and patiently, he will get crops that in a few years will put him out of debt and make him independent.

The emigrants' children will not be likely to be losers in the way of schools. More is being expended for popular education by the southwestern states, notably Texas, than by those further east. Wherever the colored people are found in considerable numbers churches will be found of some sort.

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There is much more to stimulate the ambition of a colored man in the new than in the old sections of the country. He feels, perhaps for the first time in his life, that he has a fair chance; that he is largely freed from those traditions of society and those prejudices of race that work against his advancement so constantly and so powerfully in the older sections. He feels that in that new land he has a chance to make for himself and family as good a position as they are capable of filling.

This emigration movement will also relieve the plethora of colored labor in the East, which has resulted in the starvation wages that now prevail. If a third or even a half of the colored people in some sections should remove, it would be better financially and otherwise both for those who go and for those who stay.

But whether this movement be welcomed or deprecated, it exists, and it will probably deepen and extend. Does this fact involve any duty or present any opportunity to the friends of the race?

The same appeal that has been made so urgently and so properly to follow white emigration into the Northwest with the Christian Church can be made with refer

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ence to the movement we are now considering. The wants of needy, perishing souls must not go unheeded because they are west of the Mississippi river. Our Lord's command is to go where the people are with the message of salvation. Such work may be even more hopeful there than in the East. While the emigrants are removed from old influences, they are peculiarly susceptible to new ones. The fact that the Negroes are religiously inclined makes it extremely desirable that the best and purest teaching be given them at once; that the Church and the living ministry do not lose their hold upon them, but in these new lands strive to lead them to a higher type of Christian life than they have known. Churches they will have. Religion, as a form and superstition or as a great uplifting, life-giving force, they will have. The moral and religious forces that gain control during this changing, formative period will give shape to the future. May the Presbyterian Church be found prepared to furnish these emigrants, in the churches and schools which she will plant, the influence that shall save them from the dangers and realize to them the promise of their new western homes. H. N. PAYNE,

ATLANTA, GA.

CONTRACT SCHOOLS.

At the late Mohonk Conference over Indian affairs, the most important and interesting question discussed was contract schools, that is, schools for the Indians which are carried on by various Christian denominations, who receive from the government a certain sum for each pupil, as per contract, with specified conditions. There were many opinions expressed, and probably more unexpressed, on the advisability of continuing these schools. The prevailing opinion was that they ought to be continued. and increased in number until all the Indian children were gathered in. It was generally conceded that the very best work, as a whole, is done by the religious schools. If we study the subject, this, we think, will be apparent from the very nature of the

work and the kind of teaching and teachers. The object of the Christian people in undertaking and carrying on these schools is primarily to convert these heathen people to Christ. The teachers are selected with this end in view, and only those accepted who are members of the church and who are duly and officially endorsed by responsible men and women, their pastors and church officers being of the number. Even the helpers in the inferior positions are almost always members of the church, and chosen because of their good moral character. Not only must they be members of the church, but they must have a missionary spirit and must have given evidence of it before they are chosen. Very many who meet all these conditions are not sent, but only the very

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