Wonderful and more wonderful tales are now reaching the world of the unlimited resources of the South.  They are a new discovery even to the South itself.  These stories of lumber and mineral wealth are turning the tide thitherward.  Towns and cities are beginning to spring up as they have in the West, and both great need and rich opportunity call for immediate missionary work.  This new population is mostly, as yet, from the North, though many from Wales, especially miners, and from other countries of the old world are beginning to come in.  In the new towns they find no churches, in the old towns few whose ideas and customs can satisfy their minds and hearts.  Here is a great opportunity.  We can aid these people to establish churches which will emphasize that interpretation of the Gospel which we believe to be Christian.

In Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee we have already aided in establishing such churches which have connected themselves—­and gladly so—­with the regular State organizations of Congregational churches.  No direful results have followed.  No fanaticism is in it.  It is simply doing the thing that is right and Christian.  May such churches continue to multiply in the “New South” and help to make it new indeed.

    STATISTICS OF CHURCH WORK IN THE SOUTH.

Number of Churches                   136
Number of Missionaries               113
Number of Church Members           8,438
Added during the year                989
Added by profession of faith         734
Scholars in Sunday-school         14,735

THE MOUNTAIN WORK.

Notwithstanding all the interest that has been manifested in our mountain work, we feel sure that the churches do not realize the magnitude of this field, the pressing needs of this people in the heart of our country, the wonderful opportunities before us, and the heart-stirring results already secured.

Large portions of seven States—­three or four hundred counties—­with a population of between two and three millions, claim our attention and call for our work.  Here is a country of untold natural resources.  Here is a people of good blood.  Men of power have come from among them, and shown of what they are capable.  Side by side with the Northern soldiers these mountaineers fought for the Union, or suffered in prisons rather than fight against it.  Where our schools and churches have been established, men and women of worth and ability have stepped out and become strong helpers in building up new institutions.  But away from these institutions and out of touch with the life of the towns, we find a class of people whose condition in itself is a Macedonian cry.  Their windowless, stoveless, comfortless log cabins; their so-called schools, in which on the roughest benches conceivable, and without a desk, a slate, or a blackboard, with a teacher with unkempt hair, ragged and dirty clothes, possibly bare feet, who perhaps can scarcely read, the children study