Last Sunday morning we went to Pekin, starting at 8 A.M.  It is a drive of fifteen miles through turpentine forests, and the roads are very rough; we go up hill and down all the way, three creeks to cross and one river.  Across this there is a bridge, rather originally constructed.  We go down a steep and sharp curve, on the edge of high banks, and then through a covered bridge across the rushing stream, which is seen between the foot planks, and we are thankful to get across without any backing on our horse’s part.  The woods are very lovely just now, very few wild flowers, but such a variety of foliage, and we notice a beautiful flowering shrub, called “ivory “; it is a mass of delicate pink or white blossoms.  These turpentine forests are by no means all pines, there are many varieties of oak.

The Sunday-school at Greenlake church, Pekin, is held at 9 A. M. Our object this morning is to meet the children and teachers, before they disperse, and organize a Mission Band.  The little church, or rather schoolhouse, is situated on a hill, and there is a fine view of the rolling country; only this morning one longs for a little shade.  One of our former scholars (now working in the turpentine) comes out and takes our horse.

The school is just over, and we hear there is to be preaching at 11; it is now 10:15, so we ask the pupils to stay.  We sing and then Miss Bechan explains about foreign missions and mission bands.  They give in their names and appoint officers, agreeing to meet twice a month.  They have also a Woman’s Missionary Auxiliary, which has been meeting once a month since last December.

There is a recess of ten minutes, then the preaching begins.  The preacher is a young man, who would gain much (as would his hearers) by attending school a few years.  This is one of the heart-sores in the work here—­the great ignorance of many of the preachers.  Some of them will tell you, they have had “no education,” and, indeed, it is all too plain, from their curious expressions and mis-applied long words; but worst of all is their ignorance of the Bible.  But how can they do better till they have been taught?  There is a crying need of educated pastors in these country places.  The young men tell us, they “do not find religion interesting;” one said, that, after “having tried it two or three times.”  It is hardly to be wondered at, that they are not interested, when the thunder is all that is shown them.  They are told they ought “to quake and tremble,” and if they do not, they “show by their actions that they mean to go to hell.”

Woman’s State Organizations.
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          Co-operating With The American Missionary Association.

MAINE.

WOMAN’S AID TO A.M.A.

Chairman of Committee—­Mrs. C.A.  Woodbury, Woodfords, Me.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

FEMALE CENT INSTITUTION AND HOME MISSIONARY UNION.