Here, too, as in the Central South Association, the temperance question held a prominent place in the discussions.  There was not a member of the Association but was heartily in favor of prohibition.  The Atlanta campaign was on in all its heat and passion, and beseeching requests were made by the delegates from that city that prayer might be offered for them as they passed through the heat of this battle against legalizing crime.  Almost every church in the Association was represented in this meeting and one new church applied for admission.  This church stands near the old prison pen of Andersonville and so the blood of the martyrs proves the seed of the church, whether they wear the monk’s cowl of a Huss or the ragged blue of our country.  The church at Charleston, S.C., reported two missions just established in the destitute parts of that city.  All the churches in this Association assisted by the A.M.A. are struggling towards self-support under helpful pressure from that Society.  I am glad to report that the church at Savannah has taken upon itself the support of its pastor and local expenses for the next year.  The churches in this Association, although poor and often in serious financial straits themselves, showed their appreciation of other lines of Christian work by passing the following resolution: 

Resolved, That in view of the financial embarrassments of the Home Missionary Society, the pastors of the churches urge upon their people the duty of taking up a collection for the benefit of that Society.

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As illustrating the need of intelligent and decent church services in the South, I record the following facts, which were related to me by those who knew of them personally.  A colored preacher of the “old-time” sort preached on the Judgment Day.  He held the meeting from evening till well into the night.  He arranged with a worthless fellow to hide himself in the woods just outside the church, with a tremendously big dinner-horn, with instructions to blow upon it at a certain signal.  At the awful hour of midnight, when, by entreaty and appeal and frightful figures of speech, the preacher had worked the people up into a frenzy of excitement and terror, he exclaimed, “Listen, I reckon I hear Gabriel getting ready to blow now.  De last day am on us, de judgment am right here, whar you sinners now?  Listen.”  And with bated breath they listened.  Just then there came a fearful blast on the stillness of the midnight air, and the scene that followed can better be imagined than described.  Helter-skelter over the benches and over each other, the terrified people scrambled for the mourners’ bench.  The preacher boastfully told afterward, that “dar want scarsely one sinner but what wah effected.”

The quiet forms of worship in our Congregational churches, and the intelligent preaching of the A.M.A. ministers, are fast bringing about a state of things which will drive out such church circuses, with their ministerial clowns.  God speed the day!