ANNUAL MEETING.

Our annual meeting at Lowell, Mass., October 23d to 25th, promises to be an occasion of great interest.  A large proportion of the addresses will be from missionaries.  The work throughout the year has been greatly blessed, despite the difficulties it has had to meet from lack of adequate means.  The meeting opens at three o’clock, Tuesday afternoon, and the annual sermon will be given by Rev. Charles H. Richards, D.D., of Philadelphia, in the evening, followed by the communion service.

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ARRANGEMENTS FOR OUR ANNUAL MEETING.

A partial and tentative programme of our Annual Meeting has been prepared.  Times are provided for open discussion or the “free parliament.”  But it is deemed necessary to secure some able writers and speakers to prepare reports and deliver addresses on special and important topics.

We are happy to announce that at this writing a number such have promised attendance.  Among these we may name the President of the Association, Merrill E. Gates, LL.D., President of Amherst College; Rev. Chas. M. Lamson, D.D., Hartford, Conn.; Rev. DeW.  S. Clark, Salem, Mass.; Rev. Dr. McKenzie, of Boston; Dr. Lyman Abbott, of New York; Hon. Frederick Douglass, of Washington; and his Excellency, Governor Greenhalge, of Massachusetts.  Some others have been invited from whom favorable answers are expected.

A marked feature of this meeting will be the unusual number of missionaries and workers from the field, who will give living pictures of things as they are.  Following the happy precedent of other years, each of the co-operative Congregational societies will be represented by a speaker chosen by itself.  These addresses will be brief, and will manifest the feelings of harmony and comity existing between these societies.

The meeting promises to be an interesting and valuable one.  The topics discussed are of vital importance to the work, and the addresses will be worthy of the topics.  Lowell is accessible, and its welcome will be cordial.

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LOWELL.

The city of Lowell has long enjoyed a national, even world-wide reputation, as the leading center for the manufacture of cotton fabrics.  And, while this industry offers employment to something like 25,000 men, women and children, there are also enterprises in great variety that do not use cotton fibre in any way, yet find work for ten to fifteen thousand more toilers.  The principal corporations are the Lawrence, Tremont and Suffolk, Merrimack, Boott, Massachusetts, Hamilton and Appleton, beside the Middlesex, where shawls are made, and the carpet mills, where the famous Lowell carpets are woven.  While the city is a veritable beehive of industry, yet the people find time for recreation, and have wisely provided breathing places in different parts of the city, where they can recuperate mind and body.  The prominent pleasure