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Professor Lawrence, of Jellico, Tenn., who was so seriously injured by an unprovoked and cowardly attack, is, we are happy to learn, slowly improving.  Suffering, both from excruciating pain and from great nervous prostration, all that a human being can endure and live, yet he has borne it uncomplainingly.  Large expenses have been necessarily incurred for surgeon’s, doctor’s and nurse’s bills, and Mr. Lawrence is a poor man, working on a missionary salary, when he might have received more elsewhere.  As Professor Lawrence received his injuries in the simple discharge of his duties as a teacher in an A.M.A. school, our Committee will feel it their duty to render him some pecuniary aid, and if any of our friends are disposed to assist us in rendering such help, we shall be glad to receive their donations for that purpose.

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THE LONDON MISSIONARY CONFERENCE.

This large and important gathering of the friends of Christian missions throughout the world, held its session in Exeter Hall, London, June 9-19.

This is the fourth great Missionary Conference.  The first was in Liverpool in 1860, the last was in London, held ten years ago.  This Conference far surpassed its predecessors in the numbers present, in the completeness of the previous arrangements, and in the range and importance of the topics discussed.  The members numbered over 1,200, gathered from all parts of the world.  Nearly forty American Societies were represented, six Canadian, fifteen Continental, and fifty-four English, Scotch and Irish Societies.

One topic that received deserved attention was the curse of deluging Africa with liquor by Christian nations, and the continued curse of the opium traffic which England inflicts upon China.

From the brief reports which have reached us, we judge this Conference to have been a very able and enthusiastic one, and that it will probably give a new impulse to Christian missions throughout the world.

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Secretary Beard represented the American Missionary Association in the London Missionary Conference, agreeably to appointment by the American Committee of the Conference.  His paper was entitled, “Christian Missions among the North American Indians.”  He also read a paper which Secretary Strieby had prepared, by appointment of the American Committee, on “The Freedmen of America as Factors in African Evangelization.”  Dr. Beard attended the Conference on his way to Europe to bring his family home.  He is expected to return about the first of September.

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GETTYSBURG, FRATERNITY, FREE BALLOT.

The meeting of the Blue and the Gray on the field of Gettysburg at the late anniversary celebration marks an era in national fraternity.  The orator of the day, George William Curtis, did a noble, perhaps we might say courageous, deed in lifting the enthusiasm of the glad hour above the remembrance of past heroism and present harmony to the great duty of the nation—­a free and fair ballot.  A few lines culled from the oration will give the thought.