This may be fittingly said of Rev. G.S.  Smith, who for thirteen years was pastor of the Congregational Church at Raleigh and McLeansville, N.C., and who entered into rest on the 12th of last August.  Memorial services were held on the 26th of August in the church where he had long and faithfully conducted the worship of his people.  Addresses were made by those who had been intimately associated with him in his work, which testified to the earnestness and success of his ministry.  The best proof of his work is to be seen in the intelligence and virtue of the community in which he labored.

Our field missionary in a recent visit speaks in this way:  “It is very rare to find colored people under such discipline and so orderly and intelligent in meetings.  The faces of the old people are sunny and sweet, they are so attentive and appreciative and so responsive.  The young people were at the meeting in large numbers.  It will give you an uplift from your work to spend a day or two with the people of this place in meetings such as they now hold.”

THE SOUTH.

* * * * *

THE WALDENSES AT VALDESE, N.C.

SECRETARY C.J.  RYDER.

This new field of work, which was reported for the first time at our annual meeting last year, is one of unique and especial interest.  Two years ago the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm arrived in New York with one hundred and sixty-six Waldenses among her steerage passengers.  These people came from the Piedmont valley and mountain regions of Italy.  Their purpose in coming to America was to establish for themselves homes in our own mountain region of the South.  This little company that came down from the deck of the Kaiser Wilhelm were the pioneers in the establishment of their colonies in this new land.  They were rather the Pilgrim Fathers of this Waldensean movement.  Before the actual colonists had come, Rev. Chas. A. Tron, D.D., pastor of the Waldensean Church, and member of the Board of Evangelization in Italy, had been to the mountain regions of North Carolina, and after careful investigation had purchased a tract of land for these Waldensean colonists.

Soon after the coming of these Waldenses, correspondence was opened with them by the American Missionary Association.  The colony was to be planted in the midst of our great mountain field, and we had every confidence that the coming of these conscientious and devoted Christian colonists would be of real helpfulness in our work there.  Rev. C.M.  Prochet, D.D., whose name is well known to the readers of this magazine, and to the Christian public generally, came to look after the interests of the Waldensean colony not long after their first settlement.  In conference with Drs. Tron and Prochet, and after learning thoroughly the condition of their colony, an appropriation was voted by the Executive Committee to assist them in the beginning of their work, as they were in great need of such help.