We are now compelled to deny more appeals for help which ought to be heard than we are granting.  Several schools which were begun by private enterprise with good intent, are now asking us to take them from their hands upon our own, where they can be perpetuated and saved.  We would like to save these schools to the needy people whose hope is in them, and to protect the churches from indiscriminate appeals for works which they have not authorized, and which we could do with greater economy and better care; but for this we need a generous increase of gifts.  Our faith was in Him who said, “Knock, and it shall be opened unto you,” and the doors were opened.  God withdrew the bolts of hindrance and said, “Beloved, I have set before you an open door.”  Our faith is in Him who also said “Ask, and ye shall receive.”

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A friend has just sent us eighteen subscriptions to the American Missionary.  This might be repeated easily by a thousand friends.  There is {88} scarcely a self-sustaining church in the United States where it could not be done by one who would try to do it as an act of missionary love.  Some who read this, perhaps, will try and will succeed.

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The name of Rev. Frank Cross, who was appointed to the charge of the Rosebud Indian Mission, was by mistake not printed in the roll of workers.  He is there, however, and his work has gone on bravely and hopefully.

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We wish that the extent, and necessity, and hopefulness of our mountain work, were more fully understood by our readers.  Now is our opportunity and the accepted time to answer the most urgent appeals from this neglected region in the heart of our country.  Our Congregational churches are just what are needed to uplift these people.  One of our earnest missionaries writes us:—­

“The A.M.A. has done a work here to be profoundly grateful for as a beginning, but thus far it is only playing around the edge of its mountain work.  This mountain region is of great extent.  Sober calculation from facts already gleaned, makes a thousand Congregational churches in these mountains the possibility of the future, if only the strategic points can now be occupied.  One church and one school to a county, should be our immediate aim; then we can throw upon these the work of developing native teachers and preachers for the rest.  There are forty counties waiting for us, and all our mountain work so far is in three or four.  I see this place where I am, changing like magic under the influence of school and church, but the necessity for our going forward oppresses me.  I am ready for any additional labor, and will carry any burden my strength will permit, if only the American Missionary Association will take for its motto, ’One church and one school in every mountain county, as fast as they can be established.’  I feel, when I see the need, as if I could plead the money right out of the most self-indulgent members of our favored churches at home.  It would not be expensive as compared with other missionary work.  Cannot some way be devised for making a large advance on the present movement?”

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