Thirdly, the white South is gaining.  Not very rapidly, but gaining.  The lawless part of the South—­and there is a lawless part—­is as lawless as ever.  The lower and more violent elements, however, are but a small part of the Southern people.  Still they know that the general public opinion is not positive enough to condemn them in any question between the negroes and the whites; hence they are not afraid to do what they will with the negro.  The great body of the Southern people are law-abiding, with the single exception that they do not propose to respect the Fifteenth Amendment.  They are committed against this.  They deprecate lawlessness.  They are personally kind to the negroes.  They are busy in the ordinary duties of life, but the lawless know that these good people will never disturb them in their injustices to the negro.  Then, there is a relatively small element of the people who are prophets of a better day.  They themselves often feel the slavery of a public opinion which puts odium upon them when they are too friendly in behalf of the oppressed colored man.  They cannot oppose many things which they feel to be wrong without losing their influence.  These seers of the future are in hearty sympathy with our work and give it such personal encouragement as they may under the tyrannical conditions of a public opinion not friendly to equal rights on the part of the negro.

There is a great gain, also, in Southern public opinion as to the capacity of the colored man and his possible future.  This gain is seen in the better provisions for the colored public schools, in towns and cities.  The schools of the A.M.A. are both object lessons and incentives for the education of the white as well as the colored in the public schools.  The South is exceedingly sensitive as to the opinion of the North.  A trifle of published criticism, for example, goes through the Southern papers with rebuttals enough to break down a national constitution.  An imperfect and incorrect report of an interview, which lived just long enough to be printed, has been lately passionately confuted in certain Southern newspapers with a profusion of epithets which were out of all proportion to the harmless nonsense committed to the press by an untrained reporter—­a new illustration of the extreme sensitiveness of the South to Northern opinion.  Northern sentiment is often ridiculed, and frequently sends not a few Southern newspapers into spasms, but it is heeded.  Let it be kindly and true, and pressed fraternally and constantly “In His Name” who came

  “To take away transgressions
  And set the captive free.”

* * * * *

THE VALUE OF PURE AND INTELLIGENT CHURCHES.

The extract given below has the true ring.  It is from one of the pastors of the American Missionary Association educated at Tougaloo and Howard Theological Seminary.  If sometimes our church work seems small and discouraging there are many things to be remembered.  Many times we are told by the pastors of our churches “we could have larger churches and more of them if we would accept the standards of those about us.”  Moreover, some little church with fifty members may be doing more for the cause of Christ than some big church of ten times the number.  But, read the extract: