During the evening there is music and reading of selections.  Talking can be taken part in by all, and laughing is done in a common language.  Whether the name of it is English or Vernacular, we do not know.  The evening passes all too quickly, and one by one they depart to their homes.  The money is counted, $21.50 cleared.  The women feel that their supper has been a success.  The last one but the school-teacher has left.  There is something sublimely grand in being alone at midnight in a house that was only a short time before full of life and mirth.  One has a desire to sit and look on the moonlight and dream.  But it is more practical to straighten up the school-room and go home.

FROM THE WORD CARRIER.

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THE CHINESE.

ITEMS.

1.  The item of greatest importance to us is the establishment of a mission at Los Angeles.  The A.M.A. was first on this field, having had a prosperous and useful mission school there, more than fourteen years ago.  But early in 1876 Rev. Ira M. Condit, a missionary returned from China, well versed in the Chinese language, went with his family to that city to open a mission under the Presbyterian Board.  In the belief that, with such advantages, better work could be done by them than by us, we transferred our mission to them, pupils, teacher and all.  I have seen much reason since to doubt the wisdom of this step, and to feel that I should never repeat it.  But the open doors have been too numerous, and the pressure from points where there seemed to be none to care for these souls, has been too great, for me to think of using any of our limited resources for the purpose of crowding in where brethren of another name were working.  And it is only because the city has now become so large, and the Chinese population in it covers so great an area, and the number of our own brethren there is so considerable, and their appeal for a mission so urgent, and their assurance so full that it could not now be a rival to other missions, but rather a welcome co-worker with them, that I consented to resume.  The result is gratifying indeed.  No less than seventy-five were enrolled as pupils the first month.  An Association of Christian Chinese has been formed, having already a large membership, and the purpose and promise of vigorous Christian work.  The teacher in charge of the mission is Mrs. C.A.  Sheldon, long connected with our work in San Francisco, and than whom no teacher ever employed by us endeared herself more to her pupils or wrought more successfully on their behalf.  We have reason to believe that from the start the evangelistic spirit will be strong in this mission, and I look to see many turning from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.