shall correspond with the promises of God.  The statistics in this department of the Association’s labors may look like “Holy Trifles;” and comparatively they are “Holy Trifles;” but so is the “handful of corn” in the Messianic psalm, which depicts the future growth of Christendom.  The things tabulated in these statistics are the “handful of corn” in our Southland, but as we contemplate them, we may use the old, old song of the church and sing ourselves into an ecstasy:  “There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like the cedars on Lebanon; and they of the city shall flourish like the grass of the earth.  His name shall endure for ever; his name shall be continued as long as the sun; and men shall be blessed in him and all nations shall call him blessed.  Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things.  And blessed be his glorious name forever; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory.  Amen and amen.”

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Report on mountain work.

By Rev.  G.S.  Burroughs, chairman.

Your committee, to whom those portions of the General Survey relating to the work of the Association among the mountain whites has been referred, are strongly convinced that this work is one of great and growing importance.  We rejoice in the evidence that such is also the conviction of the management of the Association.

The territory occupied by these mountain people, consisting of between three and four hundred counties, covers an area twice the size of New England.  Its population is equal to that of New England, excepting Massachusetts.  Its resources, in mineral deposits and in valuable timber, are varied and rich.  It is being rapidly opened up to trade, and thus indirectly to civilization.  Its inhabitants are ready to welcome outside influences, and they are in large degree susceptible of those that are good.  These facts, we believe, cannot receive too careful attention.

We are deeply impressed with the great destitution of these people as regards intellectual, moral and spiritual things.  Poor in the extreme as far as their physical wants are concerned, they are still poorer in reference to the wants of their minds and souls.  So great is their poverty in these particulars, that, in large measure, they do not, until approached in Christian kindness, realize it.  They are without education, and without true religion; without schools and without churches.  Practically, they do not know the Sabbath; they are in utter want and ignorance of those ordinary means of grace which are as familiar to us as the sunshine and the rain.  The violence and social confusion which are to be expected under these circumstances are prevalent.